


how it would be

by somethinglikeasunflower



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Coming Out, Fluff, Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pining, Verbal Abuse, it's mostly mentions of it and it's not violent or anything but here's the tag in case, the tags seem SO sad but a big majority of the fic is cute and lighthearted I promise 🥺, they r lil sweeties omg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethinglikeasunflower/pseuds/somethinglikeasunflower
Summary: Because, you see, despite the passing of seven trying and turbulent years, the memory of Eliott had certainly not turned hazy. If anything, the memory had burrowed itself into the forefront of his mind, a constant, comforting reminder of a time when he was truly happy, truly himself.So for Eliott to stroll intohisschool looking likethatafter all these years was nothing short of absolutely insane.–Or, a childhood best friends who were separated for a while only to reconnect at the foyer meeting au
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 68
Kudos: 213





	1. why did we ever have to leave

**Author's Note:**

> hey there lovely people <3
> 
> this is my first fic and I'm really excited to see what you guys think! I hope the childhood nostalgia and baby elu sweetness brightens your day 🥰 thank you to my lovely friends who let me scream about my ideas for this at all hours of the night, you're literal angels 💛
> 
> fic and chapter titles from "little league" by conan gray

It had always been Lucas and Eliott.

For their whole lives it had just been the two of them. 

Since before either of them could remember, their bedroom windows sat opposite each other on a narrow little street in the heart of the 11th arrondissement of Paris, waiting to be flung open each morning for Eliott’s customary good morning ritual. 

At precisely 6:35 each morning, Lucas would be woken up by an insistent tapping on his window pane. It was always Eliott, launching pebbles from the small jar tucked in the corner of his windowsill. He would continue until Lucas approached the closed window, swinging it wide open and grumbling complaints to the boy giggling at him from across the way. 

That was their tradition, their _thing_ , for years. But it was all ancient history now. 

That ritual had stopped seven years ago, the day Eliott moved clear across the city, the day Lucas and Eliott became Lucas and some childhood friend he would never see again, some boy that would eventually become no more than a hazy memory. 

For a time, Eliott’s window sat vacant. Then it came to be occupied by a sullen, brooding teenager that always kept the blinds drawn, and then, soon enough, Lucas was leaving his childhood home, the memories it held, and that creaky old window, behind forever. 

So who could blame Lucas for the alarm bells screeching in his head at this very moment. This moment, with him sitting before the girls who had managed to blackmail him into attending a meeting about “the creation of spaces for the exchange and communication of really different people”, Basile and Arthur spouting nonsense into his ear, and Eliott waltzing through the door like it wasn’t going to flip Lucas’ world upside down. 

Because, you see, despite the passing of seven trying and turbulent years, the memory of Eliott had certainly not turned hazy. If anything, the memory had burrowed itself into the forefront of his mind, a constant, comforting reminder of a time when he was truly happy, truly himself.

So for Eliott to stroll into _his_ school looking like _that_ after all these years was nothing short of absolutely insane. He couldn’t help but avert his eyes out of instinct at first, but after allowing the initial panic to settle, he dared another glance in Eliott’s direction.

What he was decidedly _not_ expecting was to be met with the most intense gaze he had ever witnessed in his entire life. Eliott locked his eyes onto Lucas’, looking straight into his mind, no, _his soul,_ the very same soul that was hoping and praying with every shred of itself that Eliott recognized him too. 

As much as he needed to know, needed to somehow ask with his eyes, a silent _Do you know who I am? Please say you know_ , he felt his cheeks burn scarlet after a mere moment pinned under Eliott’s stare from across the room. He abruptly snapped his gaze back to the floor, his brain swimming with the speed of it, excitement, hope, and sheer panic fighting for dominance in his whirlwind of thoughts. 

It made him squirm, the fact that “ _God_ he’s hot now,” was the thought that seemed to prevail in his mind, so despite the way it terrified him to consider, he welcomed “Does he even remember me? Does he even remember _us?"_ And by allowing that worry into his consciousness, he just had to look up again, had to catch another glance. So he did. 

He was surprised to be immediately met with Eliott’s gaze yet again, just as piercing as before, and, no, he couldn’t be imagining this. Eliott wouldn’t be looking at him like that if all their years of swingsets and silly notes and pebbles thrown at window panes had blurred in his memory. 

There was no way. 

–

Eliott Demaury was a permanent fixture in Lucas’ life. 

Right?

Sure, he was moving to the farthest corner of the city, sure, Lucas was only nine years old, but this was his best friend. At least that’s what the handmade bracelet sitting loosely on his wrist said, plastic letter beads spelling out _best friends forever_ interspersed with blues, greens, and purples. 

So why did this feel so final? Why did this goodbye feel like something painful, like the other half of his heart was stepping into a moving van and driving off over the horizon, never to be seen again?

They _would_ see each other again. Eliott sure seemed to think so. His cheery smile and brief, tight hug had an air of _I had fun hanging out, I’ll see you tomorrow!_ that made Lucas squeeze tighter, trying to absorb some of that optimism through the embrace.Their parents had grown to be friends over the years, the Demaurys were _friends_. They _would_ see each other again.

They _would_.

So as the boys’ parents brought the last of the boxes down to the moving truck and they all said their final goodbyes, Lucas forced the weakest of smiles, an unsteady _bye window buddy,_ and let Eliott jump into the van after his mother. He plastered on his best pleasant face, watched as the door shut behind Eliott, as the engine roared and they pulled out into traffic. He watched as the van disappeared around the corner, building a dam of sheer will behind his eyes, refusing to cry in front of his parents, to burden them with his drama and antics like he always did. 

He was overreacting, he was stupid, none of this mattered. 

But, yes, of course it mattered. His other half just left him without a personalized morning alarm, without a respite from his father, without the glimmer of joy that came in the form of a brightly colored note taped to a window pane, waiting to be read from across their narrow street. 

His other half had just left him. Alone. And no amount of denial would stop the ache that came with that fact. No amount of optimism would dull the brutal truth that they would likely never see or hear from each other again. And not even the strongest dam could hold back the tears once he finally made his way back up to his family apartment, to his little room that suddenly felt suffocating, and stared out of that creaky old window. 

–

Eliott wasn’t staring back at him anymore. 

Lucas had been stealing periodic glances in Eliott’s direction for the entirety of Daphné’s blabbering about whatever this meeting was for. After that second glance, though, he had tried to be more covert, and his efforts had been rewarded (or punished depending on your outlook on the situation) with a 100% reduction of intense, panic-inducing eye contact. Lucas was growing anxious to confront the situation, however, which is what led him to approach Eliott when he saw him standing outside after the meeting. In the middle of the very important matter of selecting a snack from the vending machine propped against the wall behind the bus stop, it took Eliott a moment to notice that there was someone uncomfortably hovering in his space.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there.” Eliott huffed out with a chuckle, turning to see who it was that had startled him. The moment of recognition flashed visibly through his eyes, and the two settled into a tense silence.

“Um… Lucas?” Eliott eventually managed.

“Yeah... yes! God, sorry! I was just– I was surprised to see you at the meeting,” Lucas blurted out, “but uh… do you want to come sit? Catch up a bit?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. That sounds nice.” Eliott hummed with a warm smile, joining Lucas in walking over to the bus stop bench and taking a seat. “It’s been a while, huh?”

“It… it definitely has, yeah.” 

“How have you been?”

“Good… things have been good.” and Lucas wanted to hurl himself into space. Why was this so unbearable? 

“That’s good. It’s nice to see you,” and there was that gaze again. If this was going to become a regular occurrence, Lucas was going to have to consider moving to Timbuktu to escape the swooping, tingling panic spreading through him. 

“Yeah, you too.” 

And the discomfort of it all, the way even looking at Eliott sent a queasy feeling rushing over him like a tidal wave, it sent his mind into an anxious down-spiral. Yes, it had been seven years, but surely their essence, the power of Lucas and Eliott, best friends forever, should have worked its magic when they reunited. Why did everything feel so forced? 

Lucas knew he had gone through a lot since they last spoke, Eliott probably had too, but had they really changed so much that he couldn’t even hold comfortable small talk with Eliott? _Eliott_ for christ’s sake. His absolute best friend for the first nine years of his life. His window buddy, the person that had meant the most to him in the entire world, and if he was honest, still did.

Had he grown to be someone worse, someone that the universe had decided no longer deserved to get along with the likes of Eliott “sunshine himself” Demaury? Had they gone through so much of life apart that they would never be able to go through it by each other’s side again? Was his memory betraying him? Was their bond not the once in a lifetime magic he always looked back on with the fondest of smiles? What did all this mea-

His mental breakdown was halted by a warm voice cutting through the silence, “So… uh, window buddy... How have you been making it to school all these years without your extra special wakeup call?”

His voice was laced with a careful nonchalance. He was testing the waters, subtly grasping for memories he hoped Lucas would recall. And that small acknowledgement of them, of everything they had meant to each other, sent Lucas' mind into overdrive again. 

_Oh my god oh my god oh my god he did not just say that to me, he just… he remembers, he remembers everything. This is it. This is where I die… Sheesh his face is nice to look at. God what is wrong with me???_

He needed to reply. He needed to get his mushy brain together and speak some goddamn words before Eliott’s eyes burned an actual hole through the side of his head. 

“Yeah, um I had to get myself an alarm clock. The sound sort of drove me insane. But, yeah I… I missed you.” And at that he couldn’t make eye contact anymore. He glued his gaze to his feet and shuffled them around on the pavement below. He was ridiculous, he was just embarrassing himself. Maybe he should have let the silence swallow him whole, it probably would have been better than admitting to the walking runway model he hadn’t seen in forever that he _missed_ him in the first two seconds.

“I missed you too.” And it was quiet, so quiet, but it was there. And when Lucas managed to look up again, he matched the soft smile he found on Eliott’s face. 

Maybe his memory wasn’t betraying him after all.

–

Lucas and Eliott were sprawled out across a giant pile of blankets and pillows in Eliott’s bedroom. As young kids do, they were feeling quite rebellious, the door shut tight so that they could stay up past their bedtime and enjoy the best part of any sleepover, the nonsensical and endlessly entertaining late night ramblings about everything and nothing.

Their discussion was held in hushed giggles, moving from the topic of frogs to who would win in a fight against a bridge troll to what they would eat for breakfast the next morning.

The talking never stilled, ebbing and flowing as naturally as if the two were born to keep each other in conversation. Lucas would watch Eliott light up about the awesome movie he watched the other day, and he would feed off of that energy, going off on a passionate tangent about the new things he had just learned in his book about the planets.

“Oh, Eliott, guess what, guess what?” Lucas would squeal excitedly.

“What??” Eliott would respond with a teasing chuckle.

“I read something _so cool_ today. Like the coolest thing ever. Want to hear it?”

“Of course I do!”

“Do you know about parallel universes?”

“What is _that_?” 

“So basically – oh my god Eli, this is so cool – there are a bunch of universes out there that are like ours. Like there’s infinity Lucases and infinity Eliotts just out in space somewhere, and they’re kind of like us, but maybe they’re eating pancakes tomorrow instead of waffles, or they live in New York instead of Paris. So, like, no matter what we do, there’s other versions of us that did something else. How cool is that, Eli?”

“That stresses me out, Lu.” Eliott grumbled.

“How can that stress you out? It’s awesome! You never have to be worried about your choices because there’s so many versions of you that you’ve probably tried everything there is to try and done everything there is to do!”

“Yeah, but don’t you think that’s scary? All these yous that you don't know anything about? Just being this version of me is plenty.”

“I don’t know, Eli, I like it. I bet you and I are sitting here talking like this in a bunch of other universes. I bet one of you has black hair!” And to emphasize his point, Lucas couldn’t help but reach out a hand and violently fluff Eliott’s hair.

You’re kidding yourself if you think Lucas stopped there, though. He _was_ only eight years old after all. After successfully filling Eliott’s mop of golden hair with tangles, Lucas began poking and jabbing and tickling everywhere he could reach. Eliott was writhing and laughing and squirming, helplessly huffing out _Lucas, hey, stop it, Lucas!_ between uncontrollable giggles. Lucas responded by smugly scanning the room with a snarky _What’s that Eli? Do you hear something?,_ digging his hands in deeper to Eliott’s sides. 

Amidst all the commotion, the boys had completely forgotten that they were supposed to be rebelling quietly against their bedtime, and were abruptly reminded of the fact by Eliott’s mother swinging open the door with a disappointed glare. 

“Boys, you were supposed to be asleep an hour ago!” She chided, “What on earth are you still doing up?”

Lucas retreated from his attack as Eliott mumbled, “Sorry, mama. We’ll go to sleep now, I promise.”

“Alright,” she sighed skeptically, “But if I have to come in here again there will be consequences.”

“Yes, mama, I know.” Eliott muttered with his gaze pinned to the ground.

And she nodded in motherly triumph, turning and closing the door behind her, adding a _Goodnight, boys, sleep well_ for good measure.

“You’re ridiculous, Lu.” Eliott shook his head with a wide grin once he was sure his mom was gone for good. 

“I’m not ridiculous! I’m the coolest, best person you’ve ever met!” Lucas pouted, crossing his arms and sticking his chin up in playful mock offense.

“Oh my god, Lucas. You know, sometimes I forget how young you are.” Eliott chuckled at Lucas’ dramatic performance. 

“What is that supposed to mean??” Lucas scoffed, shoving Eliott’s shoulder. 

“Nothing, just, nothing. Let’s go to sleep before my mom decides we don’t get waffles tomorrow, ok?” 

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want that.” Lucas admitted with a raised eyebrow, settling into the covers and finding a pillow to lay his head on.

“No we really wouldn’t.” Eliott replied, smiling fondly at Lucas as he burrowed under the blankets as well. And staring through the darkness at Eliott in the middle of their pillow mountain, Lucas decided he didn’t want to go to sleep, he wanted to stay up with Eliott forever. But before he could open his mouth to restart the conversation, Mrs. Demaury was peeking her head in once more, so he screwed his eyes shut, doing his best to appear to be convincingly asleep.

When she left, seemingly satisfied with Lucas’ performance, he found himself slowly starting to drift off. He almost didn’t catch Eliott’s whisper, but the sound of his voice managed to lift Lucas out of his sleepy daze just enough.

“I think Lucas number 415 and Eliott number 1012 get to stay up tonight. I like that.”

A moment of sleepy silence, and a soft reply, “Yeah, I like that too.” 

And with that, Lucas drifted into a peaceful, dreamless sleep, a soft smile on his lips, and his favorite person in all the universes and beyond dreaming vividly beside him. 

–

Lucas had been on high alert all week, buzzing with the knowledge that he could cross paths with Eliott at any moment. Since their first interaction at the bus stop, where Lucas had gotten home only to realize he never asked for Eliott’s number, he had been searching him out everywhere. That certainly did not mean he ever worked up the courage to _actually_ approach when he did catch sight of him, though. Quite the opposite, in fact. One particularly memorable incident saw Lucas being cursed out of the girl’s bathroom after diving for the door on instinct when he saw Eliott approaching from the other end of the hall.

So now, on Friday afternoon, sitting at that same bus stop, ready to head home for the weekend, he finally allowed himself to let his guard down. That, of course, meant that the universe took her chance to make an utter fool of him, sitting Eliott Demaury down right next to him while he was engrossed in sending a text. 

“Fuck, you scared me!” Lucas exclaimed with a breathy chuckle upon noticing Eliott.

“Nice to see you too.” Eliott giggled in response. 

They sat staring at each other for a moment, dopey little grins on both of their faces. For all the panicking Lucas had been doing the past week, he felt calm, safe, now that Eliott was actually right in front of him. 

“You doing anything this afternoon?” Eliott asked.

“No, I don’t think I am.” Eliott's face lit up at that.

“Let’s go on a little trip, shall we?” He announced mischievously, standing back up and extending a hand to help Lucas stand as well. Lucas hesitated for a beat, looking around him for god knows what. A sign? A confirmation that this was really happening? Who knows.

But looking at Eliott’s outstretched palm, it was simple. Of course he was going with him. It had been seven years and he’d still follow Eliott to the ends of the earth if he asked.

So Lucas firmly took Eliott’s hand to pull him up, shaking his head and grinning, “Sure, why not.”

Eliott tightened his grip on Lucas’ hand and took off down the road. Lucas stumbled trying to adjust to the pace, but soon enough the pair was careening through packs of tourists towards whatever undisclosed location Eliott had in mind.

Once Lucas had processed the fact that he was holding Eliott’s hand, his stomach started doing violent somersaults. They held hands as kids all the time, but this time the contact was starting to burn. Looking down at their interlaced fingers set his heart racing. Before he could take a proper moment to assess the cause of this distressing phenomenon, Eliott was letting go to push open a gate and gesturing for Lucas to step inside. 

When Lucas registered where they were, he realized just how little he had been paying attention to his surroundings. Eliott had led them to a quaint playground with a cute little swing set standing in the center, the bold primary colors standing out against the soft greens of the surrounding trees. This was _their_ playground, _their_ swing set. This little tiny corner of this little tiny park was one of the staple memories of their childhood together. He hadn’t been back since the last time Eliott had brought him here.

Lucas carefully approached the swing set, slowly tracing his fingertips over the metal bars, feeling the whispers of the past that rode on the breeze. He turned to see Eliott still standing in the gateway, watching him. 

“C’mere.” Lucas beckoned. 

“Isn’t it weird? Coming back here?” Eliott inquired as he approached.

“Yeah,” Lucas mused, still engrossed in the memories being conjured up by touching the cool metal of the swing. “It’s nice though, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it’s really nice. Why do you think I brought you here?” Eliott smirked. He rounded the support beam to stand behind one of the swings, gesturing towards the seat. “Want to sit, for old times sake?” 

“Yeah, alright. Don’t push me off this time.” Lucas warned, pointing an accusatory finger at Eliott’s sternum.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Eliott joked, raising his hands in surrender.

As Lucas sat, and Eliott began pushing him, launching him higher and higher each time, if he closed his eyes, he was nine years old again.

–

Eliott was truly pushing his luck. Lucas had begrudgingly agreed to let him pick the activity for their last time hanging out before the move. He had picked to visit the swing set, to which Lucas had replied, _The swing set, Eli, really? We go there almost every day!_ Eliott had shaken his head with an exasperated sigh, _I know, I know, but I want to go one more time. With you. Come on._

Once they arrived, Eliott managed to convince Lucas to try pushing him in the swing. After a few weak attempts, Lucas grunted and crossed his arms, blowing at the strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes with a dramatic huff. “You’re too tall, it’s not fair. I can’t push you.” he grumbled.

“Come on, Lu, don’t be a grumpy hedgehog. This is the one thing I want to do before I leave, you wouldn’t want to ruin my last day, would you?” And he was messing with Lucas now, deliberately pushing his buttons, and Lucas knew it. 

He spun defiantly on his heels, his back to Eliott and his nose turned up in annoyance. “You can push yourself. You’re the one moving away, traitor.” And maybe he wasn’t completely amping up the drama for the sake of it anymore, maybe he really hated how easily Eliott could bring up leaving, like it would just happen and everything would be fine. And maybe Eliott could sense that, because he dropped the teasing and stood up to walk over to Lucas, who still refused to face him.

“Hey, it’s ok, I’ll push you, alright, it’s fine, I'm sorry.” He reassured, reaching to unlock Lucas’ arms and leading him to sit. Lucas went, not without a bit of resistance, and after a few pushes, he started to soften again, suppressing his small smile out of pride at first, eventually giving in to it and allowing a wide grin to spread across his features. Eliott was whispering nonsense in his ear with every push, soon turning his smile into roaring laughter, until his grip was loosening on the chains of the swing, Eliott’s next push sending him tumbling to the ground. 

“Oh my god, Lucas! Are you ok?” Eliott exclaimed as he rushed to his side. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m ok.” Lucas managed to huff out between giggles. “Help me up, will you?” He asked, reaching for Eliott’s hand. When Eliott accepted it, Lucas yanked hard, sending him tumbling down to lie beside him. 

“Hey!” Eliott yelped breathlessly as he fell, “Was that really necessary?”

“Of course it was.” Lucas chided, scrunching up his nose at the look of betrayal on Eliott’s face. “Oh, please you’re fine.”

And they both chuckled lightly at that, settling into a peaceful silence, watching the clouds pass aimlessly above them. The park was far from busy on a random Wednesday afternoon in late August, so they laid on the ground for what felt like forever, existing together without words, silently taking note of the shape of a dog, a car, a flower outlined in the fluffy white overhead, until Eliott started to jab at Lucas’ shin with his foot. Lucas didn’t notice the first, and pretended not to notice the next three, but on the fifth poke to his leg, he turned his head with a heavy sigh. 

“Oh my god, Eli, what?” 

“Do you think in one of your parallel universes we get married someday?”

“I don’t know. I feel like we’re way too young to think about that stuff.” Lucas pondered, “Why are you asking?”

“Well, just, I guess it would be nice to have a guarantee that you’ll marry someone you like talking to, and you’re like the only person I like talking to, so…” 

“Yeah,” Lucas mused, “you’re like the only person I like talking to too.” And he turned to watch the clouds again with a small smile.

“Let’s make a deal.” Eliott announced.

“Ok…”

“If we aren’t married when we’re 35, let’s marry each other.” Eliott offered, raising his eyebrows as he awaited a response.

Lucas made a goofy face, pondering the proposal for a moment, “Alright, deal." He announced, "Let’s shake on it.” And he extended his hand, which Eliott accepted with a very serious nod and a _pleasure doing business with you, kind sir._

Their promise hung in the air for a few moments, the idea settling between them, before Eliott sat up, crossed his legs, and spoke again.

“You know, if we’re gonna get married, we need wedding vows.” He claimed, as if those were normal words to come from an 11 year old.

“Is that so?” Lucas teased, sitting up to face Eliott, their knees touching. 

“It’s only right.” Eliott insisted, “We’ll get bad luck if we don’t say vows.”

"Not bad luck!" Lucas gasped, clutching a hand over his heart with a giggle. 

A pause.

“Alright then, are you gonna start, Eli? It’s your stupid idea.” 

“No, you start.” 

“No, you.”

Another pause. A silent standoff. 

“Fine.” Eliott sighed in defeat, and he took a moment to compose himself, took Lucas’s hands, and looked him in the eyes. “Lucas Lallemant–” and Lucas burst into a fit of laughter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Ok I’m fine, sorry, ok, start over.”

Eliott glared at him, saying _Come on now, Lu, you’re killing the romance_ , which only made Lucas keen over with laughter yet again. After about three minutes, Lucas was finally able to pull himself together. 

“Alright, Monsieur Demaury, romance me up, I’m ready.” And Eliott carefully took his hands again, wary of another laughing fit, and when he seemed convinced one wouldn’t come, he took a deep breath and started his speech again. 

“Lucas Lallemant, you’re my favorite person. I like anything we do together. I like talking about random things with you, I like sitting in the park doing nothing with you, I even like watching movies with you. And you’re always grumpy when we watch movies, so that’s saying a lot. I think we’re supposed to be best friends. I know you love the planets and the universes, and I think there has to be a reason that all that stuff is out there, all those versions of everything, and we still managed to be window buddies. I’m grateful for that every day. Even if we grow up and move away and we do end up marrying awesome people, I’m really glad I met you, I’m really glad I get to call you my friend.”

And for all his previous teasing and mocking and laughing, Lucas was at a loss for words. He really meant that much to Eliott. And the kindness was making him uncomfortable, the compliments were making him squirm, so when Eliott said, _ok, now it’s your turn, Lu_ , he just couldn’t help himself. He cleared his throat, conjuring up the silliest accent he could muster, “Eliott Demaury, my husband, light of my life, an angel on earth. What would this world be without you? This is a marriage for the record books, but age is nothing but a number. The world is just jealous of our eternal love. Romeo and Juliet don’t know anything about love, only we will ever be able to understand. You have the most beautiful blue eyes–”

“They’re grey, idiot,” Eliott said with a weak chuckle. “Are you done?”

“Look who’s killing the romance now!” Lucas scoffed, giggling when Eliott gave him a playful shove. “Your eyes _are_ blue, by the way. I’m the one looking at them right now, I think I’d know.”

“They’re _my_ eyes, Lu, I think _I_ know what color they are.” 

“Nope. I’m your husband, you’ll have to trust me on this one, they’re blue.” 

“Whatever you say, Mr. Demaury.”

“Hey, why do I have to switch my name?”

“Because if you get to decide what color my eyes are, I get to decide your name.” Eliott declared smugly.

“Alright, fair enough.” Lucas conceded, laying back down to watch the clouds again. Eliott joined him after a moment and the two sat for a while, simply enjoying each other’s presence.

“I’m really gonna miss you, Lucas.” Eliott eventually muttered, still looking at the sky. Lucas turned to look at the wistful expression on Eliott’s face. In all of their joking around, he had managed to forget that Eliott was leaving the next day. He turned his face back to the sky, shutting his eyes to keep the welling tears at bay. 

“Me too.” He sighed, keeping the tremor out of his voice by sheer force of will. 

“But we’ll see each other again.” Eliott said with a certainty that made Lucas turn his head to face him again. 

“You think we will?”

Eliott turned as well, giving Lucas a warm smile.

“I know we will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked the first chapter 🥺 feel free to give me feedback in the comments 💛
> 
> find me on tumblr: [earthlingeliott](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com) 🥰
> 
> and the [ficpost](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com/post/628800584499200000/how-it-would-be) on there if you want to perhaps reblog 🥺💛💛


	2. we wore our hearts out on our sleeve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: homophobia, verbal abuse, bipolar disorder
> 
> ok so I've added tags/trigger warnings for this chapter and if you're reading them you might be a bit alarmed but I promise it's not that bad! There are just various discussions/memories of things the boys dealt with while they were apart, but I wouldn't have written the parts if I thought they would be super upsetting, I'm just trying to be mindful and tag anything that might apply, just to be safe! especially with the verbal abuse one, it's coming from the way Lucas's dad acts, and he's definitely not a nice guy, but it's not like dangerous or anything I promise Lulu is safe 🥺 if there are any additional trigger warnings you would like me to add, please let me know! 
> 
> the structure of this chapter is a bit different, the childhood stuff is kind of woven into the scenes in the present, hope that doesn't confuse anyone! and a big fat kiss on the forehead to caro and dyamond for dealing with my insanity while writing this ily both 💛💛
> 
> all that being said, this one's pretty long and quite the emotional rollercoaster so get yourself a snack and I hope you enjoy! 🥰💛

Eliott did not, in fact, push Lucas off the swings a second time. 

Had he been tempted? If the ridiculous puns and commentary being giggled into Lucas’ ear with every swing were any indication, then yes, most definitely. But you have to give them _some_ credit. They’d grown up at least a _little_ bit since they were here last.

Eventually Eliott’s arms grew too tired and the pack of children waiting for their turn on the swings grew too large, so they decided maybe it was time to take their very much _not_ 4-10 year old selves and find somewhere more suitable to play.

“Want to come over to mine?” Eliott offered once they had crossed through the gate and settled into a leisurely pace on the sidewalk. 

“Yeah… sure, that would be nice.” Lucas hummed with a shy smile. 

So they walked in comfortable silence to the bus stop, and sat in comfortable silence on the ride. Sometimes elbows would brush against each other or knees would knock together and Lucas would feel a tiny shockwave through his chest. Sometimes he would look over to Eliott and be unable to fight the warm grin that overtook his face. They were back, the two of them, like he remembered. This was nice. 

Soon they were climbing the stairs to Eliott’s apartment, opening the door with a click, and Eliott was darting over to the living room. He zipped over to the corner, seeming to tidy things on every surface he could reach, pulling a couple little pages off the wall and shoving them into his backpack.

“Woah, hey, you don’t need to worry about cleaning up, I really don’t mind,” Lucas chuckled, “You know my room has been a complete mess since I could walk.”

And Eliott was still stuffing papers into his backpack, Lucas could even see a bit of paint that had chipped off the wall with the speed of his tidying rampage. And he was so focused on the task at hand, Lucas wasn’t convinced Eliott had even heard him speak.

“Eliott?” He tried again with a furrowed brow. Eliott snapped his head up, blinking rapidly.

“Yeah? Oh, sorry, were you talking to me?”

“Yeah,” Lucas teased, “Yeah I was, idiot.”

“Sorry, I just, um, I didn’t want you to get a bad second-first impression I guess. And, um, my parents will be back from a trip tomorrow–you know how my mom likes to keep the house–and um… Sorry, I’ll– I’m done now.” Eliott managed, standing up and pushing the backpack to the side with his foot.

“It’s ok,” Lucas giggled, “You’re all good.” And the two shared a glance, chuckling softly before Lucas took a chance to properly look at the rest of the slips of paper left hanging on the wall. There were some drawings of raccoons, of course, but he also saw all sorts of other sketches: eyes, hands, a fox running across a meadow, and some more abstract drawings, shapes and lines bending across pages.

“You still draw your raccoons, huh?” Lucas mused as he continued to take in all of the drawings plastered on the wall.

“Yeah, sometimes.” Eliott replied in an equally soft tone, both of their voices a bit glazed over from the blanket of memories that had been wrapping its way around them since the swings.

And then, almost out of nowhere, the blanket became a crashing wave, overtaking Lucas with a rush of particularly potent nostalgia and the distinct memory of the first time he had discovered Eliott’s spirit animal. 

_“A raccoon?” Lucas had exclaimed one day while the pair sat drawing at the little table tucked in the corner of Eliott’s bedroom. “You’re a raccoon?”_

_“Raccoons are awesome, Lu!” He had replied, shading in the snout of the cartoonishly sketched animal. “Plus, they wear a mask.”_

_At the time Lucas had thought a mask was fitting. Superheroes wore masks, after all, and so did Romeo, the daydreaming romantic in that storybook of Shakespeare plays his mom had been reading with him at bedtime. Lucas giggled at the thought of Eliott fighting crime in a cape, and again at the thought of Eliott falling hopelessly in love at first sight at a masquerade ball. And ok, maybe Eliott wasn’t the next Batman, but he had special powers of his own. And to Lucas, the ability to put a smile on his face without fail seemed the best superpower a person could have._

_“Alright Eli, if you were gonna draw me, right now, how would you do it?” Lucas exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in giddy anticipation. At the thoughtful crease that formed between Eliott’s eyebrows Lucas added, “No thinking, just say it, what animal?”_

_“Hedgehog!” He blurted._

_“Hedgehog?”_

_“Hedgehog.”_

_“Why a hedgehog?” Lucas grumbled._

_“They’re spikey!” Eliott supplied with a ruffle of Lucas’ messy mop of hair for emphasis. He smirked devilishly when he added, “But also tiny and cute.”_

_“I am_ not _tiny!” Lucas roared, grabbing a big blue marker and vindictively slashing it across Eliott’s page._

_“Hey!” He retaliated, grabbing a purple crayon and scribbling messily over Lucas’ hard work._

_Lucas went home that day covered in marker stains._

He came back to that memory often, remembered the grin on his face as his mother picked him up and walked him back across the street, as he looked at his hands covered in every color of marker Eliott owned. And when his father had screamed his head off for the mess he had made on his skin, he had closed his eyes and imagined the little raccoon and hedgehog that Eliott had drawn once their marker battle had settled down. _So we’ll always be together. In here, forever._ Eliott had mused, tongue sticking out between his teeth in concentration, adding the final spike to the little hedgehog’s back. And Lucas had looked at the pair of animals smiling widely at each other, swinging on a red and blue swing set, and felt happy. He had looked at the expression of pride on Eliott’s face as he reviewed his work and felt happy. And now, looking at Eliott’s most recent raccoons, more polished than he remembered, expressing emotions surprisingly complex for such simple little caricatures, he felt that same happiness bubbling up in his chest. 

“Your techniques have certainly improved.” he joked, giving Eliott’s elbow a weak nudge.

“I dunno, I personally think I peaked at age ten.” Eliott quipped back, returning the nudge with a goofy grin. 

“I really like this one,” Lucas murmured after the teasing air settled a bit, pointing to a simple sketch of a pair of hands, seemingly gripping onto each other for dear life, “You can feel it, you know, like they’re holding on to something really important. Like they never want to let go.”

“Look at you, Mr. Art Critic.” Eliott teased, but the jab was soft, and Lucas could tell he didn’t really mean it. Especially when he added a careful, _Thank you, though, that’s really nice._

“You’re really talented, Eliott, seriously.” And Lucas almost let it slip, almost called him Eli, but something about the nickname felt too sacred, too foreign, like it belonged to a different Lucas, one he hadn’t seen in seven years.

So when Eliott responded with a _Thanks, Lu, really. Thank you._ Lucas felt his heart stutter. And he smiled. He smiled because he wasn’t the only one with a mind stuffed full of memories, because he hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear that one tiny syllable, how much he needed Eliott to remember too. And standing in an apartment he had never set foot in, filled with furniture he didn’t recognize, Lucas felt more at home than he had in years. 

–

It had been a while since they first arrived at Eliott’s. He had gotten the two of them a few beers and they had found themselves on the couch, telling each other various anecdotes of their lives since they’d seen each other last. 

“Do you still play?” Eliott inquired after a particularly riveting story of the time Lucas’ piano piece had been upstaged by a girl who could burp the alphabet at his school talent show. He nodded towards the piano tucked against the wall, an unspoken addition, _Play something for me, will you?_

“Not so much anymore… But, um, I could see if I still can… if you want.” And at Eliott’s soft smile and gentle nod he stood from the couch and wandered over to the bench, taking a seat and sliding the cover off the keys. “Any requests?”

“Surprise me.”

So Lucas closed his eyes and hovered his hands over the keys, conjuring up the piece in his mind. He had known what song he would play immediately, but he took a moment to let the memory of the notes settle in his fingertips. He began slowly, playing the first notes carefully– 1, 2, 3, 4. He repeated the pattern, speeding up with every repetition, adding a second hand after a few passes of the notes. And as the music consumed him, the wave of memories returned, washing over him again and again.

_“Here, Eli, it’s this key.” Lucas pointed out, pressing B on the little plastic children’s keyboard he had lugged across the street for his playdate with Eliott. “Hot cross buns: B, A, G.”_

_Eliott watched intently, trying to copy the notes Lucas demonstrated, failing disastrously in his attempt. Lucas chuckled lightly, watching the focused frown on Eliott’s face as he continued to play random and unrecognizable patterns of notes._

_“You should really stick to art, Eli.” Lucas teased at the seventh incorrect try at the three note passage, “The piano really isn’t for you.”_

_Eliott huffed in surrender, pushing the keyboard off his lap. “ It’s too hard, Lu, I can’t see what sound they’re going to make, how am I supposed to know which identical looking white button is the right one to press?”_

_“Here,” Lucas offered, picking the keyboard up off the carpeted floor, “I’ll show you.”_

_He played a simple children’s song, a merry little tune he had been practicing with his mother for the past few weeks. It wasn’t particularly long and it wasn’t particularly complicated, but when he was finished, Eliott jumped to his feet, erupting in boisterous applause. Lucas ducked his head shyly at the ridiculous praise, but his heart felt warm. Eliott always knew how to make him feel special._

_After a few more moments of bouncing about, Eliott settled back on the floor next to Lucas, tugging at the keyboard so that it rested between them, one side on each of their knees._

_“Ok, try to teach me again, I can do it.” He beamed, a new sense of determination behind his eyes._

_“Alright, one more time,” Lucas chuckled, “B, A–”_

_“Boys?” It was Eliott’s father, peeking his head into the room with a warm smile, “It’s time for Lucas to head home, I’m afraid.” He turned his head to address Lucas directly, “Your father is waiting at the door.”_

_“Oh…” Lucas mumbled, “ok.”_

_“We’ll be out in a minute, dad, thanks!” Eliott smiled, hopping up to help Lucas gather his things to leave._

_“Alright, I hope you had a fun day boys, I’ll leave you to clean up.”_

_He was incredibly cheerful, Mr. Demaury. It made Lucas feel a strange pang in his chest. As he tied his shoelaces and tucked the little keyboard into the crook of his arm, all he could think was what it would be like to have such a kind person as a father. Mr. Demaury made pancakes on Sundays, he cracked goofy jokes at the dinner table, he always wore a friendly smile and brightly colored suspenders. He wouldn’t scream at Lucas for leaving a toy on the floor by mistake, or for accidentally interrupting a phone call._

_As Lucas and Eliott walked to the front door, Lucas looked at the scene in front of him. His father, waiting sternly for him, and Eliott’s making cheerful small talk despite the disgruntled and blunt replies he received. It ached, watching them. It ached because he felt jealous of Eliott, because with the jealousy came resentment, and with the resentment came guilt–guilt because he loved Eliott more than anything, because he was more than happy knowing Eliott lived in such a loving home, but he couldn’t help but resent. He couldn’t help but envy._

_Seeing that his father hadn’t yet noticed them approaching, Lucas put a hand on Eliott’s arm to stop him from moving closer. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay forever, Eli. Can I please just stay.”_

_Eliott’s brow creased with worry at the sadness he found in Lucas’ eyes, “Hey, are you ok?”_

_“I just… I just want to spend more time with you.” Lucas replied weakly, staring at the ground._

_“Lu, hey, you’ll be ok, you can come over tomorrow, first thing, I pro–”_

_“Lucas, I’ve been waiting! It’s time to go now, I have work in the morning.” Lucas’ father huffed, walking over to where he had spotted them in the hallway and grabbing the arm not holding the keyboard to lead Lucas out of the door._

_“I– Wait, I…” Lucas protested weakly, flustered to have been so abruptly taken from his conversation with Eliott. “I didn’t say goodbye...”_

_“You see that boy enough, I think you can survive one day.” His father grumbled as the door shut behind them._

_“But just… can I…” Lucas tried, looking back at the closed door with sad eyes._

_“No, Lucas, you kept me waiting long enough, we’re going home now.”_

_So Lucas resigned to walk away towards the stairs, but not without taking one last glance at the Demaurys’ front door, imagining the warm souls he would find behind it. He felt a silent tear slip down his cheek._

And without really being conscious of the fact at all, Lucas had come to the end of the song, the music pouring from his fingertips like it was hardwired into his brain. He came back into his present mind in time to thoughtfully play the last few notes, letting them resonate for a moment before letting out a deep sigh and trying to shake the dull ache his mind had just so kindly created for him. He had little success. 

“That was crazy.” He heard from behind him, and _oh right_ , he had Eliott himself sitting right here in the room with him. He turned slowly to meet Eliott’s eyes, and the expression of awe painted across his features sent a warm bolt of lightning through the heavy feeling that had begun weighing on his shoulders.

“Thanks. I still think your Hot Cross Buns has me beat.” Lucas puffed out a small laugh, walking over to sit back in his place next to Eliott on the couch. 

“You said you don’t play much anymore. You sure seem well practiced to me.” Eliott remarked, still altogether too impressed in Lucas' opinion.

“I practiced a lot a few years back. Not so much recently.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah... well, um, you know my dad always had… a temper. Well– well it got kind of bad after a while. He would blow up over any little thing. I walked on eggshells in my own home. So when he was at work, Mama and I would always play the piano. I know she was just doing it to take my mind off of everything, but it helped us both I think.” 

And where had _that_ come from? Lucas wanted to staple his mouth shut. He needed to do it soon, before he accidentally blurted out more trauma when absolutely nobody had asked for it. Why did he have to go and take a perfectly nice afternoon and ruin it with his faulty brain to mouth filter? Why on earth did he have to be like this?

“I’m so sorry, Lucas.” Eliott muttered carefully, placing a comforting hand on Lucas’ knee, “I’m sorry your dad treats you both like that. I hate it. How is she, your mom?”

And Lucas tried to ignore the spark of adrenaline at the contact, at the way Eliott listened, and absorbed, and _cared_ about what he had to say, “She’s doing ok now. She actually got diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years ago. It got pretty bad–you can imagine how much help my dad was–so she was committed a little while back. But she’s been doing well, improving a lot, I think. She says she might be ready to come out soon. I really hope she can. I miss her, I wish I could see her more.”

“I really hope you can see her too.” Eliott said, rubbing a soothing circle on Lucas’ knee, “How are things at home, you know, with your dad?” And Eliott was so concerned, so kind and caring, Lucas thought he might cry.

“I actually moved out. My parents split up before my mom was hospitalized, and after that I didn’t want to live with him and he didn’t want to deal with me either, so I actually live with some friends now. Manon? Have you met her at school yet?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen her around.” Eliott hummed, and he had a nervous expression on his face, now, and Lucas was worried he had somehow done something wrong. 

Lucas placed a hand over Eliott’s on his knee, “Hey, is everything ok?”

“Yeah… yeah it is. I just, I have to tell you something.”

“Ok, it’s ok, take your time.” Lucas encouraged, trying to be even half as comforting as Eliott had just been while Lucas had laid all his baggage out for him to see.

“I– um you– you’re probably wondering why I showed up at your school halfway through my last year.” 

“I mean, I was a little taken by surprise, I guess,” Lucas said with a light chuckle, squeezing Eliott’s hand, “But you don’t have to tell me why if you don’t want to.” he added softly, trying to relieve some of the stress he saw eating away at Eliott’s features.

“No. No, it’s ok I want to, really. Lucas… Lucas, I’m bipolar.”

“Oh,” That was all? 

“And for the longest time, I didn’t know. My parents didn’t either. I mean, there were signs, but they aren’t psychiatrists any more than I am, you know? So I had a manic episode in the middle of the school day. It was–it was awful, Lucas, everyone was staring and whispering and there were all these rumors…” His eyes were starting to well up with tears, now, “And I just, I felt broken, I felt crazy, I couldn’t stay there. So my parents contacted the real estate agent from the old apartment, and they found us this place in the same neighborhood so I could come back to school here. And, um, yeah that’s– that’s it.”

“That’s awful, Eliott, I can’t believe that happened to you.” And now Lucas was on the verge of tears too, imagining Eliott going through all of that. “You’re not crazy, not at all. Thank you so much for telling me.” It was almost too much to just imagine, his heart broke thinking about Eliott actually experiencing it. 

“You’re not– You’re not bothered by it?”

“That you’re bipolar? Eli, come on, of course not. It’s a part of who you are. It doesn’t matter. You’re Eliott, you’ve always been my window buddy, that’s never going to change, you hear me?” And Eli felt fitting now, rolled off his tongue without a second thought. That realization made him feel euphoric and panicked at the same time. Suddenly, Lucas was hyper aware of every minute movement Eliott’s hand made beneath his palm, every little breath that escaped his mouth– and oh my god, he needed to get his shit together and be there for Eliott, like yesterday.

“Thanks, Lu, I– I don’t know what to say.” Eliott mumbled with a soft sniffle, removing his hand from under Lucas’ to wipe a stray tear. And Lucas couldn’t decide whether he was relieved or devastated at the loss of contact. Regardless, he was happy to see the color returning to Eliott’s face, the visible relief he could tell he felt from getting that off of his chest. 

“Come here.” Lucas opened his arms for a hug, which Eliott reciprocated after giving Lucas a bashful smile. And having Eliott in his arms, his cheek pressed into Eliott’s hair and Eliott’s breath tickling the back of his neck, there was that lightning bolt again, ripping through the heavy feeling more insistently now, making Lucas feel something like pure hope swooping through him. And when he pulled away, and Eliott’s hand brushed Lucas’ shoulder on the way, his stomach lit up with butterflies. But he would have to come back to thinking about that later. In the meantime, his phone was pinging with a text from Mika.

 **From Mika:** chatounaaaaaaaa r u coming home tonight or do i have the place to myself 😏

Lucas rolled his eyes as he typed a reply.

 **To Mika:** don’t get any ideas i’m coming back rn

“Hey, um, do you mind if I take off?” Lucas asked timidly, “Just if I don’t head back soon who knows what rando my roommate is gonna invite over. Not that me being there would stop him, to be honest, but it’s getting pretty late anyway, you probably want me out of your space.”

“You’re not bothering me, I like having you here,” Eliott smiled, “but go ahead home, I should probably tidy up the rest of the place anyway, my parents are gonna be back home first thing tomorrow.”

“Ok, if you’re sure it’s ok. I just don’t want to run out of here after everything we’ve been talking about, I guess.”

“I’m sure, Lucas, go ahead, I’m fine.”

“Ok.” Lucas chuckled, “But hey, I can give you my number, so we can hang out again, catch up some more, you know, without you surprise attacking me at the bus stop?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Eliott giggled. He handed over his phone and Lucas punched in his number. Eliott took it back when he was done, typing out a text to send him. He felt a vibration in his hand and looked down at the screen.

 **From Unknown:** window buddies 4 lyfe 🤪🖇

“What are the paperclips for?” Lucas questioned, looking back up at the owner of the unknown number.

“They’re linked together forever. It’s us in an emoji.” 

“How poetic, Demaury.” Lucas teased, trying to remain calm, cool, and collected while _linked together forever_ was screaming in his head.

“I’m an artist, what can I say.” He joked back, reaching behind him to hand Lucas his jacket and backpack. “I’ll see you at school, yeah?”

“Yeah, see you at school. And say hi to your parents for me!” 

“Ok,” Eliott chuckled, “Will do. See you later, Lu.”

“See you later, Eli.”

And maybe the intense fondness coursing through him was more than simply the fondness a person has for their childhood best friend. Maybe, Lucas thought as he stepped out onto the street and boarded the bus to make his way home, he was feeling the remnants of the tingling contact of Eliott’s hand on his shoulder just a little too strongly. 

He thought about his day, how much had changed since he had sat at the bus stop outside of school, thinking he would just head directly home. He thought about how he had just cracked open his soul without a second thought, revealing all the mess of hurt and feelings and traumas he had developed over the past seven years. He thought about Eliott, of course, how brave and strong he had been to open up to Lucas about his own pain and struggles. 

And he remembered. He remembered all the notes they wrote to each other back then. How they would leave silly jokes or drawings taped to their windows for the other to read, how when Lucas’ father decided he was grounded for whatever petty reason, they would have whole conversations via their little notes, sitting on stools at their window sills for hours. He remembers the few times he left a note and didn’t receive an answer for days. He should have asked. He should have made more of an effort to check in. Sure, he was nine, but he should have noticed something was wrong. 

There was nothing he could do about that, though. All he could do now was move forward and do better for Eliott, be there for him however he could be. He held tightly to the support bar on the bus as it rounded a bend and he grinned. His phone was resting in his pocket, with Eliott’s number stored inside. His smile blossomed further when he thought about Eliott texting him, asking to hang out again. And speak of the devil, there went his phone, buzzing with a notification, a text from Eliott.

 **From window buddy 🖇💛✨:** hey want to get ready with me for that party in the foyer next friday?? i have face paint 🥰

Lucas let out a childlike giggle. He didn’t even notice the stares from the other passengers on the bus, the knowing smile of the old woman sitting across from him, shaking her head at the sight of the giddy teenager in front of her. He was too engrossed in his reply, which took four tries to perfect. It needed to be effortless, breezy.

 **To window buddy 🖇💛✨:** ~~yeah sounds great 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰~~

 **To window buddy 🖇💛✨:** ~~haha sounds good 🥰 **💛✨**~~

 **To window buddy 🖇💛✨:** ~~lmao yeah that’s perfect~~

 **To window buddy 🖇💛✨:** haha yeah sounds great 💛 

Sounds amazing, sounds incredible, sounds like coming home.

–

Lucas had been texting with Eliott all week. The two had seen each other at school, Lucas had even invited him to have lunch with the gang. Upon introducing him to the group, he was met with an _Ah, so this is the famous Eliott I’ve been hearing about since we were eleven_ from Yann, who Lucas glared at warningly from over Eliott’s shoulder.

Here’s the thing. Lucas had kind of, sort of, maybe, possibly developed the tiniest of all tiny crushes on Eliott. Totally not a big deal. 

So when he returned to Eliott’s place on Friday to get ready for the party, and Eliott crowded into his space to paint two stripes on either cheek, perhaps the close proximity was doing things to Lucas’ heart rate. Perhaps he was imagining how it would feel if he just lifted his shaky hand to Eliott’s neck and connected their lips. Maybe. 

But he hadn’t come out to anyone yet. There was no real reason he hadn’t, he was pretty comfortable with the idea in his own head, he just squirmed at the thought of having to sit everyone down for the awkward conversation. So for the time being, this miniscule little teeny tiny crush would just have to live in his mind. Of course, if any rational person were to have looked in there and observed his thoughts, they would have discovered what Lucas would soon enough, that this was not just some silly little crush. Not even close. 

Just when Lucas thought he could get his panic under control, Eliott was placing his hand on the side of his face to keep him still as he drew the last stripe, because, yes, maybe Lucas was shaking a little. And Eliott’s hand was so warm and it fit so perfectly on his jaw, and when Lucas chanced a glance at him, he was met with the softest, kindest smile and–

And Lucas was screwed. This boy had waltzed back into his life all cute and kind and caring, and Lucas officially had a big fat stinking crush on him. The way his heart had literally jumped up and down in his chest at that smile had sealed the deal. 

And maybe that was scary, but maybe Lucas didn’t mind. Maybe, he thought. Maybe.

He was broken out of his reverie by the opening notes of one of his favorite songs playing through the little speaker they had set up on the dining room table. 

_Shine on, diamond, don’t make me wait another day._

“Oh! I love this song!” Lucas exclaimed, bopping his head and starting to sing along.

“Hey, hey, hey, sit still I’m almost done here.” Eliott chuckled. Lucas kept going, burst into a goofy dance at the chorus, singing along, and Eliott watched on with an amused giggle, “Troye Sivan, huh?”

The smug look on Eliott’s face made Lucas stop his dancing, an indignant expression on his face as he shook his head, “What?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing.” Eliott smiled knowingly, “Just, I really like this song too.” And Eliott was staring. There was an expectant look on his face, and oh. _Oh_. Okay. Lucas thought he got what Eliott was putting down. 

So he nodded thoughtfully and hesitated for a moment before he decided _fuck it_ and blurted, “I’m gay! Yeah, I’m gay, so, Troye Sivan, yeah.”

Great going, Lucas, that was _really_ smooth, congrats. 

“Oh… cool.” Eliott hummed, looking down at his hands and picking nervously at his cuticles for a moment before lifting his head up, “I’m pan, so… yeah.” 

Eliott held out a timid fist for the world’s most awkward fist bump, then, and Lucas was losing his mind.

They were both just standing there and Lucas’ thoughts were doing literal gymnastics at these new developments. He had not come out to one single person before, not even Yann. Nobody. It had been too daunting and uncomfortable, it was never the right time, he had never had the energy, but now he just– he just said it. It just came out of his mouth like it was no big deal. And Eliott was pan!!! That was a thing he had said, right? His mind wasn’t playing tricks? 

When he started to think about why he might have suddenly become so comfortable blurting out his sexuality at random times, his mind found its way into the past again.

_Eliott had been there the first time Lucas heard the word gay, too. Out in the schoolyard at recess, Lucas had been sitting in a little patch of grass, picking dandelions to make a cute little bouquet. In his own little world, he hadn’t noticed the small pack of boys approaching him until a swift kick to his arm sent the dandelions scattering to the ground._

_“Hey, why did you do that?” Lucas cried, staring at the flowers which one of the other boys had started to crush one by one under his boot._

_The bullies ignored his question, beginning to chant and taunt him. “The little gay boy likes to pick his flowers, huh? Aw, wanna run to your mommy, little gay boy? Hey, where’s your boyfriend, little gay boy?” (Boys this age aren’t very creative, mind you.)_

_Lucas didn’t know what gay meant, but he knew it couldn’t be a good thing. They were leering over him, circling him like a pack of wolves, and he felt so small, so terrified, he started to tear up. And the tears led to more ridicule, which led to Lucas, standing in the middle of the school courtyard, on the verge of a panic attack._

_Just when he couldn’t take it anymore, his 'boyfriend' as the boys were jeering at him, stormed up to Lucas' side._

_“Lucas, Lucas, hey, are you ok?” Eliott inquired gently, wrapping his arms around him protectively. And Lucas crumpled, he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, so, ignoring the taunts of the other boys, Eliott pushed past them to bring Lucas to sit on a bench in the corner of the courtyard._

_Lucas could vaguely hear Eliott turning back to tell off the bullies for being ‘a bunch of immature babies’ or something of the sort, but he was too rattled to make out the words completely. When they sat down, Eliott let Lucas lean limp into his side and wrapped his arms around him, tucking Lucas’ head under his chin._

_“Sh, sh, it’s ok, you’re ok,” Eliott soothed, “They’re just a bunch of bullies, don’t listen to anything they say.” Lucas cried and cried, and it took about five minutes of Eliott gently stroking his hair before he felt calm enough to speak._

_“Eliott?” He sniffled._

_“Yeah?”_

_“What’s gay?”_

_“Oh Lucas, it’s nothing bad, not at all. It’s great actually,” Eliott reassured, “It’s just when two boys are in love, that’s all.”_

_“But they were calling me gay. I’m eight, Eli, I’ve never been in love before.”_

_“I know, Lu, sometimes awful people use it as an insult, but it’s not a bad thing at all, I promise.”_

_“Ok…” Lucas wasn’t entirely convinced, but Eliott stayed there with him for the rest of recess, hugging him and telling him silly jokes until he was feeling better. And he decided if he had Eliott as his best friend, maybe things would all be ok._

So of course he was able to come out to Eliott so easily. Eliott, who since practically birth had been there for him, always knowing exactly what to say, understanding him in a way no one else had ever come close to. And wrapped up in all of his thoughts, Lucas realized he hadn’t spoken in a while–Eliott hadn’t either–and they were still just looking at each other. Lucas needed to say something before all this spontaneous energy that seemed to keep arising when he was around Eliott manifested in him pouncing on the poor boy and kissing the living daylights out of him. 

“So, um, aren’t your parents gonna be home soon?” Lucas tried.

“Yeah, uh, yeah I think– Oh that must be them!” Eliott lit up at the sound of keys turning in the door. He walked over to the entryway to greet them, Lucas trailing a comfortable distance behind. 

“Mom, dad, hey, how was dinner?” Eliott asked enthusiastically.

“It was good, dear, we had a very delicious– Lucas! How are you, sweetheart, it’s been so long!” Eliott’s mom exclaimed, opening her arms wide for a hug. 

“It’s– I’ve been good.” He smiled warmly, leaning into the hug and then shaking Mr. Demaury’s hand with another warm smile. “It’s nice to see you all, I’ve missed you guys.”

“We’ve missed you too, son. Especially Eliott, here, I mean he practically never shuts up about you.” Mr. Demaury chuckled, ruffling his son’s hair.

“Okay, I think that’s enough small talk for today.” Eliott said hurriedly, clapping his hands together and turning to Lucas, “Let’s get going, huh? We do have a party to get to after all!”

His parents shared a knowing look that Lucas doubted he was supposed to see. The last twenty seconds were starting to process in his mind, and holy mother of god was Lucas overwhelmed. As Eliott retreated into the apartment to grab their stuff, and Lucas stayed in the entryway, he was only very vaguely focused on what Mrs. Demaury was asking him. Something about how school was going? Anyways, he tried to answer as best he could until Eliott returned, handing Lucas his jacket and leading them out the door and down the stairs onto the street below. 

As they walked side by side, Lucas kept chancing glances at Eliott, his mind spinning with thoughts. He couldn’t hear, he could hardly breathe. He was giddy and nervous and excited and scared all at once. 

_He talks about me. He talks about me all the time. Fuck._

_–_

After a successful party in the foyer, Daphné had been buzzing with energy to fix the room up, ‘build off the energy of the party’ and make it the go to hang out for the school’s coolest students. She was in a constant flurry of activity come Monday morning, delegating tasks to the rest of the crew like tracking down secondhand furniture pieces and taping up flyers to spread the word of the space. For Lucas, she chose the task of “figuring out what in the world to do with this absolutely hideous mural,” yes those were her exact words, so he had texted Eliott.

 **To window buddy 🖇💛✨:** hey wanna help me paint over this mural in the foyer 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 i’ll get manon to bake you some cookies in compensation mr Artist Extraordinaire 🥺👉👈🍪

He had hardly pressed send before he had a response. 

**From window buddy 🖇💛✨:** i’d love to with or without cookies 🥰

 **From window buddy 🖇💛✨:** ok i lied i'm def gonna need some cookies 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

 **To window buddy 🖇💛✨:** tomorrow?? after classes? is that ok 🥺

 **From window buddy 🖇💛✨:** perfect see you then❣️

He spent the next 24 hours waiting anxiously to spend time with Eliott. Since he had come to terms with his crush, seeing Eliott had simultaneously become his number one most exciting and most dreaded activity. The energy and restraint it took not to kiss him senseless was extremely draining if Lucas was being honest, but the pure, uninhibited lightness and joy the other boy always brought with him made the effort worth it. 

So now, as the two of them stood, staring blankly at the mural, waiting for inspiration to strike, Lucas was chanting an insane mantra in his head.

_Don’t kiss him, don’t make it weird, think about how happy you’ve been since he came back, don’t mess it up, it doesn’t matter how many times he stares at you, that’s just what he does, what is he a runway model or something? Ok, Lucas, focus. Whatever you do, don’t kiss him you idiot._

So Lucas continued to stare dumbly at the wall, the part of his brain that could have been used for thinking of what to paint being used instead to aid in the herculean effort that was keeping his lips to himself. 

“What if we Jackson Pollock all of this?” Eliott offered, turning to gauge Lucas’ opinion of the idea.

“Like, how?” Lucas inquired, not able to quite recollect who Jackson Pollock was, let alone what his art looked like.

“I’ll show you.” Eliott replied, taking one of the brushes from their stack of supplies, swirling it around in one of the blue paint buckets and flinging it against the wall. “That, everywhere, and with every color.”

Lucas laughed at the simplicity of it. Even he could manage this, and he was awful at art.

“Art really is a scam, huh?” He teased, grinning at the little joking scoff Eliott let out in response.

“You try, then.” Eliott challenged, and Lucas raised an eyebrow, reaching down to dip a brush into the orange, flicking his wrist to splatter it onto the wall. 

“You did it wrong.” 

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did, I can tell,” Eliott giggled, picking up a third clean brush and dipping it into the green. “I’ll show you again.” And before Lucas could process what was happening, Eliott had swiped a patch of green paint onto his nose.

“There, that’s perfect.” Eliott mused, stepping back to admire his work.

“Oh no you don’t!” Lucas squealed, grabbing the nearest brush he could find and flinging paint in Eliott’s direction. And they were ridiculous, they were tossing paint at each other, swatting at each other’s arms, smearing the colors everywhere. Soon they were just flailing their arms about, dipping hands straight into buckets and wiping hand prints of every color onto each other’s shirts. They were lost in their little bubble, subconsciously drawing closer, until Eliott’s hand ghosted over Lucas' waist, and the game seemed to freeze, like they had been submerged underwater. Everything slowed to a stop, time stilling around them, and Lucas’ heart was hammering out of his chest.

_Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him Don’t kiss him_

But Eliott was looking at him, and there was something in his eyes, something that filled Lucas’ head with maybes. 

_Maybe I_ could _kiss him. Maybe he’d be ok with it. Maybe he wants me to._

Lucas’ eyes flitted ever so briefly to Eliott’s lips. The bolt of lightning was sizzling, ready to strike at any moment. If he just leaned forward a couple more inches–

“Lucas!” Daphné burst giddily into the room, Manon, Imane, Emma, and Alexia all in tow. “Oh my god, you’ve made quite a mess.”

He jumped away at the interruption, a little too dazed to fully hear Daphné’s entire lecture about cleaning up all this paint when they were done. He wasn’t, however, too dazed to notice the look Emma and Manon gave each other after they had–almost at the exact same time–looked from Eliott to Lucas, and then to each other, each raising a brow as if to silently say, _Did you just see that too?_

And that was far too embarrassing for Lucas’ liking, so he turned his attention back to Daphné, “... wash all the brushes and put them in that bag over there. Make sure to fold up the tarp and toss it on your way out. The guard is closing the gate in like...” She lifted up her phone, “Two hours, so you should try to be done by then. Oh! And can you make sure to take some pictures! It’ll be nice to have some things to post on instagram about the fo–”

“Daphné, come on, I think they’ve got it, let’s go.” Imane urged diplomatically, tugging gently on one of Daphné’s elbows. 

“Yeah, right, sorry. We’re heading out, I just wanted to make sure our artists were doing alright! I really think this will be an aweso–”

“Daaaaaaaphné!” Alexia chimed in, a bit exasperated, “Come on, let’s leave the _artists_ to their work, yeah?”

“Right, yeah, yes, ok we’re going!” And with Imane’s help, Alexia pulled Daphné back out of the room, Manon following next with a _see you at home Lucas!_ and Emma trailing after her, waiting for Eliott to turn away before giving Lucas a suggestive eyebrow wiggle and a wink and shutting the door. 

And that was more than embarrassing, that was literally _mortifying._ He couldn’t make eye contact with Eliott if he tried. It was a miracle he managed to open his mouth, “So, um, let’s finish this thing before the guard locks us in, yeah?”

“Yeah, um, let’s do that.” And they both got to silent work spreading paint across the wall. There were no more paint fights, and there was no more silly banter. The air in the room was thick as the two shuffled around each other, leaving everything hanging heavy and awkward in the space between them. And after what felt like an eternity of fumbling through the rest of the painting, they were finished. 

“We did a pretty good job.” Eliott hummed, stepping back to admire the wall.

“Yeah, it’s not half bad.” Lucas agreed, still finding words to be a bit of a difficult thing. 

The conversation died quickly, Lucas still feeling too lightheaded to find words, and Eliott not making much effort to keep the talking going, either. They worked to clean everything up, and soon they were stepping out of the gate at the entrance to school, about to go their separate ways. 

“Um… Uh, bye Lucas, see you around.” Eliott mumbled, avoiding eye contact. And without really waiting for a reply, he turned and started on his way.

“Bye…” Lucas whispered to himself as Eliott moved further and further away. And he felt his heart sinking as Eliott disappeared around the corner. He had messed everything up. Eliott had known Lucas was going to kiss him and felt uncomfortable and ran out as soon as possible. Lucas had gone and ignored his own advice, gotten too caught up in the moment, and now Eliott couldn’t even look him in the eye. He was in love with Eliott, and Eliott couldn’t even stand him and–

Wait.

Wait one second.

Love?

Lucas stood wide eyed for a moment, shocked by his own thoughts. Since when had it upgraded to love? And when it had, his brain just hadn’t bothered to tell him? That was rude. 

Needing to release some of the crazy anxious energy that was now coursing through him, Lucas finally started down the street, in the opposite direction to Eliott, heading home. He got to thinking about everything that had happened since Eliott came back, everything that happened before Eliott had even left in the first place. And if he was honest, it was almost a miracle he hadn’t picked up on it sooner. Of course he was in love, what else did you call that swooping feeling in his heart every time he thought about Eliott. 

Eliott was the most loving, interesting, thoughtful person Lucas had ever known. Who wouldn’t be in love with him? And he felt surprisingly okay with the realization, almost too much so. That’s when he remembered that he had almost just kissed Eliott, and Eliott had gone all quiet and resigned, and there it was: the panic. 

Surely he had scared Eliott off. Gone and complicated the new dynamic they had just begun to build since he had come back. But he couldn’t have been the only one that felt something before Daphné had burst in. There _was_ something there, Lucas had to believe there was. 

Then again, maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. 

But maybe it wasn’t. 

Lucas couldn’t decide which scared him more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh I'm sorry for leaving it there 🥺 I hope no one's mad oops 
> 
> in case anyone doesn't know the song referenced in the coming out scene, it's one of my all time faves: My, My, My! by Troye Sivan 
> 
> my tumblr if you'd like to yell at me: [ earthlingeliott ](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com)
> 
> ficpost for the chapter [here](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com/post/629510169978650624/chapter-one-here-heres-the-thing-lucas-had-kind)


	3. the dumb, the wild, the free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided once I wrote this that it made more sense to split this part into two chapters! so there will be one more hopefully coming soon 🥰 then there may or may not be an epilogue or two but I'm pretty busy right now so you didn't hear that 😌
> 
> again, just to be safe, tw for a mild/moderate panic attack. not described in too much detail but it's definitely described. 
> 
> same as all the others, chapter title from little league by conan gray 💛

It had been exactly 6 hours since Eliott left Lucas at the school gate. Lucas couldn’t sleep. They were too much, his thoughts, swinging about wildly like an unhinged pendulum, from _He hates me, I disgust him, I’ve ruined our friendship forever._ to _Everything is fine. Everything is completely fine. No panicking here._ in a span of about 0.2 seconds. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t keep his mind from spinning and spinning and spinning on loop.

Lucas sat in bed, eyes forced shut in an effort to will himself to sleep, flipping from one side to the other for hours on end, and soon enough it was morning, and he was off to school. 

He braced himself to face Eliott as he walked, shoving down more embarrassment and fear with each step until he was crossing through the school gates. By then he felt practically invincible. 

He could take any rejection, any way Eliott might find to break the news that he didn’t feel the same. Of course Eliott didn’t have a cruel bone in his body, but no matter how kindly it’s put, _I do not return your feelings of love_ is never a pleasant thing to hear. So, Lucas decided, if he just kept moving, he could do it. He could keep his spiralling thoughts at bay. 

He didn’t stop all day, a bundle of nervous energy doing absolutely anything he could to keep his mind occupied, distracted from the gargantuan feelings threatening to consume him completely. He had expected Eliott might avoid him, if he was honest he was doing a bit of avoiding himself, but by the time their lunch period came around, and Eliott had yet to make an appearance, Lucas started to worry. Was he okay? Had he stayed home with a cold, or skipped to avoid speaking with Lucas? Was he here, just doing a fantastic job of hiding away during the lunch block they had always shared since Eliott had arrived? Lucas thought about sending a text, calling, maybe even running by the art room that he knew Eliott’s next class was in to check if he was there. But that was insane. That was utterly ridiculous. He hadn’t seen Eliott since yesterday afternoon, so _surely_ he must be missing off the face of the earth? What kind of logic was _that_? It hadn’t even been 24 hours! Friends went far longer than that without talking or seeing each other. Lucas needed to get a grip. 

Come Thursday morning, Eliott was still nowhere to be found. _Maybe he actually is sick, maybe I should bring him some soup or something_ , Lucas thought, _I can bring him soup without blurting out a love confession, right? I can do that._ He sat with his thumb hovering over his text conversation with Eliott for a moment before concluding, _Who the hell am I kidding, I’d look at him and immediately start word vomiting. His mom can make him some soup._

So Lucas waited. And waited. And waited. By Friday, his concern had skyrocketed. He had managed to convince himself–in his panicked, love muddled brain–that his advances (or his almost advances at least) had been horrifically traumatizing and caused Eliott to have an awful episode. That Eliott was in immense pain, and it had all been his fault. The more time passed, the more the instinct to reach out and try to comfort Eliott warred with the instinct to keep far away so as to never hurt him again, creating a jumbled mess in his brain that was exhausting to even begin to consider unpacking. 

After a particularly vivid dream of domestic bliss in the Lallemant-Demaury household, Lucas came to a firm conclusion. If Eliott was struggling, Lucas would only make it worse. His messy feelings, his ridiculous yearning, the way his brain short circuited anytime Eliott was in his space, it all meant that trying to see him, trying to be there for him, would only end with Lucas dumping the burden of his feelings on Eliott for him to carry on his back, which was already being dragged down with more weight than Lucas could bear to think about. And he couldn’t do that to him. He could never do that to him.

So when Eliott returned to school on Monday, seemingly in good spirits from what Lucas could tell from across the courtyard, he resisted the urge to run to him and tackle him to the ground with a bone crushing hug. And when Eliott didn’t reach out himself, Lucas let him walk into the building, watched him retreat out of sight, firmly shutting his eyes in an attempt to block out any small fraction of the ache that he could possibly manage.

And it continued like this, for six weeks. With Eliott avoiding Lucas, and Lucas not being able to bring himself to ask why. The longer it went on, the more thoroughly convinced Lucas became that Eliott wanted nothing to do with him, that Lucas Lallemant had accomplished the unaccomplishable: he had turned away the world’s brightest ray of sunshine, the kindest most welcoming soul he had ever known. 

And maybe he deserved it, but even if he did, there comes a point when a person grows too exhausted from crying themselves to sleep every night. 

For Lucas, that point was right now, sitting at the small table in the coloc’s kitchen at 11:30 on a particularly uneventful Friday night, having moved out of his room so as not to wake up Mika next door with his sobbing. 

He missed Eliott. The ache in his chest was stronger than any pain he had ever felt. He couldn’t remember how the hell he had managed to live like this for seven years, having become so swiftly reacquainted with Eliott that it almost felt like he had never left. Until just as quickly as he had arrived, he had vanished from Lucas’ life for a second time. And he was left on his own once again, devastated. And maybe, six weeks and zero explanations or even courtesy texts later, he was also just a little bit angry. He needed to do something, he needed closure, he needed to scream, _anything_ , but the thought of hearing Eliott say anything but _I love you too_ turned Lucas’ sobs into full blown hyperventilation. And he was panicking in his kitchen in the middle of the night. He was losing his mind, and without even registering it, he was calling Yann.

“Hello…?” Yann mumbled sleepily, more than a bit thrown off by the sound of it.

“Yann… please can you– can you come over please, I can’t breathe.” Lucas gasped out. And maybe in this state he hadn’t really thought about the fact that there were three other people sleeping in this very apartment that he could have woken up, but when he heard Yann on the other end of the line, shuffling around his room with a _yeah, yeah ok, I’m coming right now_ he knew that logic be damned, his best friend was who he needed right now. 

–

Lucas was quite a lonely eleven year old. On the first day at his new school, he sat alone at a little table on the playground, watching on as the rest of the children laughed and jumped about with the friends they hadn’t seen all summer. You see, it had been two years since Eliott moved away. Two years where his father only grew more angry, and his number of friends remained stagnant at a pitiful zero. 

After Eliott had left, Lucas was scared of making new friends. The feeling of emptiness Eliott had left in his wake, the amount of sorrow that had crammed itself into Lucas' small frame in Eliott’s absence, it terrified him. Not only did he fear that any new friends would leave him too, but he feared replacing Eliott. It felt like a supreme disrespect to his other half, his window buddy, to make new friends. 

So he sat alone. He sat and he pulled little tufts absentmindedly from a dandelion like he always did, anytime he needed something to do with his hands, something to say _I’m busy, please don’t approach me. I’m not in the market for friends right now._ And after two years of a 100% success rate with The Dandelion Technique, his streak was ruined by a cheery boy with dark brown eyes and a bright smile, sauntering over to him with an enthusiastic wave.

“Hi! My name’s Yann, want to be friends?” He sang, extending his hand for a high five.

Lucas hesitantly reached up to reciprocate the gesture, mumbling a quiet, “Um… ok?”

“Cool! What’s your name?” Yann asked, sitting down next to Lucas. 

“Oh, um, I’m Lucas.” he smiled weakly. _Why is this boy so cheerful, why is he talking to me?_

“Alright, Lucas, want to come join our soccer game? You can be on my team!” 

And Lucas had reluctantly agreed. From then on, Yann slowly got under Lucas’ layers of protection, becoming his closest friend and confidant over the five years of school together that followed. He had been apprehensive to let Yann in for a long time, but he had kept up the persistent friendliness of their first meeting, and eventually won Lucas over. 

He came to realize that he didn’t need to worry about replacing Eliott. Yann meant the world to him, but it was different. Looking back on it now, Lucas could see why. He had never been in love with Yann, not even when he had thought he was throughout the previous school year. He had most certainly had a crush on Yann back then, but right now, slumped over on the kitchen table, with Yann rubbing soothing circles on his back, he knew that if this were Eliott, his skin would be on fire, sizzling with the electrifying contact. Still, if Yann hadn’t been there all these years, if Yann hadn’t jumped out of bed tonight without a second thought, Lucas didn’t want to think about the mess of a person he would be. 

“You want to talk about it?” Yann questioned gently, having helped Lucas get his breathing somewhat under control, although harsh sobs still punctuated most of his exhales. 

“I… um–”

“Hey, is everything okay out here?” Manon appeared in the doorway, followed by Mika and Lisa.

Lucas tried to answer, but only managed a shuddery breath, shutting his eyes and trying to gain some control of his breathing again. His roommates approached cautiously, Manon sitting on Lucas’ other side, and Mika and Lisa leaning against the counter. 

“We’re getting there,” Yann said with a small smile, turning back to look at Lucas, “Do you think you can tell us about what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Lucas cried, suddenly retreating into himself, wanting everyone to see a calm look on his face, believe him, and go back to sleep. 

“Lucas.” Manon chided, “We all love and care about you, I mean, Yann literally came all the way over here in the middle of the night. There’s clearly something wrong. We want to help.” And Lucas wanted to get it out, he really did, but when he opened his mouth to speak, the tears rose to the surface again and he shook his head helplessly, tucking his face into Yann’s sweatshirt. He stayed there for a bit too long, trying to gain the strength to speak. Yann just held him in a comforting hug, waiting patiently as Manon placed a warm hand between Lucas’ shoulder blades to try to help calm him back down. After the tears began to subside, he lifted his head and made an attempt at a steady, deep breath.

“Um,” Lucas sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, “Yeah, I– I guess I need to talk about it.”

“It’s ok, take your time.” Manon encouraged, smiling comfortingly when Lucas managed to lift his eyes to look at her. “We’re here.”

“Well, um… it’s about Eliott.” He mumbled.

“Yeah you guys have been really weird lately,” Yann mused, brows creased in concern for his best friend, “Did he say something?”

“No. No, that's the problem. Um...” He needed to just say it. Get over himself and say it. “We kind of… I– um.” His eyes were welling up again, his lip trembling with the strain of having to say it out loud. “I sort of– I have feelings for him.” Lucas said, staring intently at his hands.

And besides for Mika muttering a joke about another gay in the apartment which Manon cut off with a kick to his shin and a glare, nobody reacted, they just sat there, expectantly waiting for Lucas to continue, so with a bit of a relieved sigh, that’s what he did.

“Um, you guys know how we were neighbors as kids? Well we were really close, like inseparable for nine years. And we were each other’s favorite person, you know.” He started crying again at that, “Wow, that’s stupid, but I don’t know, it’s true. And anyways, he moved years ago and I didn’t think I was gonna see him again. But then– then he came back and I… I don’t know it was so easy and safe and I just love being around him. And I…” He was fully sobbing now, “And I went and caught feelings. And I– I almost kissed him when we were painting the mural. I almost did it, but you guys all came in.” he gestured to Manon, “And then it was so weird, it was so uncomfortable, and after that he just disappeared. He disappeared and I still don’t know why.” He dropped his face into his hands, shaking as he managed to squeak out one last thing, “Am I really that disgusting?” 

“Lucas, hey,” Yann said, “Hey, man, it’s ok. You’re not… you’re not disgusting.”

“Lucas,” Manon offered, “I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear, but I think you need to tell him everything you just told us.”

“I can’t Manon, he can’t even look me in the eye. He hasn’t spoken to me in weeks. He hates me.”

“Hey, you don’t know that. You need to hear what he has to say, make him explain what happened. None of us know him really well but it sounds like it would be pretty hard for him to hate you. It has to be something else. And even if it isn’t, you need closure, Lucas, you can’t keep going like this.” 

“Yeah,” Yann chimed in, “And if he isn’t in love with you that’s his loss.”

Lucas chuckled weakly at that, letting the advice settle in for a moment before looking a bit tearfully between Yann and Manon, “Thanks guys, you really didn’t have to do this.”

“Yes we did.” The whole group said in unison, and they all laughed at the coincidence, Mika and Lisa joining the others at the table for a group hug.

And the adrenaline of coming out to his friends in whatever bizarre way he just had, the lightness of releasing all those weeks of pain was starting to fill his chest up with a bubbly feeling, one that might just have been something like hope. _It sounds like it would be pretty hard for him to hate you. It has to be something else._ Lucas hadn’t thought about that, hadn’t allowed himself to go there, skipping straight to the worst case scenario. _It’s something else._ And suddenly, Lucas needed to see him. He needed to know. So he stood, running to his room before any of the others had the time to ask what he was doing. He dialed Eliott’s number as fast as his shaking hands could manage.

“Lucas?” Eliott answered, the complete confusion evident in his voice even through the phone.

“Eliott! Hi, I need you to meet me at the swings in 20 minutes, can you be there? It’s important.”

“Um… what is this about?”

“I need to tell you in person, please Eliott, I just need to talk to you.”

And there were muffled noises on the other line. Eliott sounded like, was he crying? “Lucas… Lucas I really can’t.” 

“Eliott, please, just five minutes.” And Lucas sounded pathetic, but he needed to do this, he needed to tell Eliott how he felt, and he wasn’t about to do it over the phone.

A moment of silence and a deep breath, “Fine. Five minutes. I’ll be there.” And Eliott hung up the phone. 

“Shit. _Shit_.” Lucas was really going to do this. He ran around his room shoving some clothes on, looking in the mirror, and rushing to find something else. On the second try, he was satisfied enough. It was dark anyway. He grabbed his phone and burst back out into the hallway. He tried to breeze past the kitchen, but with no luck.

“Lucas, where the hell are you off to?” Mika asked, amusement on his features at the sight of the frantic ball of energy that had been inconsolably sobbing minutes earlier. 

“I’m telling Eliott.”

“Now? It’s past midnight!” 

“I– I have to. I just, I have to.”

“Alright, chatouna, if you _have to_ then run along.” Mika teased.

If Lucas had something besides his phone to throw at him, he would have done it. Instead he settled for rolling his eyes dramatically.

“Good luck, man, I’m rooting for you.” Yann chuckled from his seat at the table. 

“Thanks…” he took a deep, shaky breath, “ok, I’m going!” 

“Wait, wait, wait!” Manon exclaimed, getting up to look through the mess of food on the counter. “Here, take a muffin for the road. Hand baked by yours truly!”

“Ha, thanks. Ok, now I’m really going.” And Lucas rushed out the door, followed by a trail of _good luck_ ’s and _be safe out there_ ’s from his friends. And he wasn’t any more convinced than before that his feelings were returned, but he needed Eliott back in his life, and if it wasn’t in the way he wanted, he would learn to be ok with that. They had to talk, Lucas had to come clean, and they had to figure out how to work through this. Lucas couldn’t go one more week without Eliott, the 364 weeks they spent apart had been enough. 

He was bursting with energy, practically running to the playground. He needed to see Eliott, needed to have this conversation like he needed air, but when he finally reached the corner, the gate in view, it hit him what he was about to do. The next time he walked this sidewalk he will have confessed his feelings for Eliott Demaury. He needed several moments. 

He slowed to a walk as he approached the gate, mindful of taking deep breaths the whole way. When he reached it, opening it with a creaky noise that split through the quiet night, he found Eliott already sitting on one of the swings, head down and face tense. Lucas wanted to reach out and smooth the creases in his forehead, take all his worries and throw them into the abyss, never to be seen again, but he settled for carefully sitting down on the swing next to Eliott. He barely even looked up when Lucas sat, just nodded in recognition of his presence, almost pained. It took a while to build up the courage to speak, but as the silence began to grow heavy and uncomfortable, Lucas finally bit the bullet.

“So… um— I’ve missed you recently.” Eliott snapped his gaze to Lucas at that, face still creased in a frown, “What happened?”

“Come on, Lucas, you know what happened.”

And he sounded… he sounded hurt. Lucas hardly knew what to say.

“I don’t think I do actually, can you explain it to me?” And Lucas hadn’t meant that to sound so resentful, but the string of words he needed to say just so happened to have that tone.

“Please don’t do this.”

“What am I doing?” He was starting to get a little tired of these cryptic responses.

“Don’t make me say it, Lucas, I can’t.”

“Well we can’t exactly deal with whatever’s going on if you can’t talk about it, Eliott. I want to help you if something’s wrong.”

“Lucas, _please_ , don’t make me do this.”

“Do _what_ , Eliott? I don’t understand!”

 _“This!”_ Eliott exclaimed, standing abruptly from the swing and gesturing wildly, “I can’t do _this_ , not anymore. I’ve been in love with you since I was ten years old and I know, _I know_ it’s ridiculous, but it’s the truth. And I thought so many years might have meant it went away, but it didn’t, Lucas, it didn’t at all. I saw you and I knew I was kidding myself. And it just– it hurts, ok? I just can’t go on pretending it’s not there anymore. I can’t go on with you getting creeped out every time I’m close to you. It’s too much. It hurts too much. And–” he dropped his arms to his side in defeat, “And I’m just– I’m so tired.” 

Lucas was stunned. He couldn’t coordinate his body to move if he tried, his mind completely consumed in blasting Eliott’s words on loop.

_I’ve been in love with you since I was ten years old_

_In love with you_

_Love_

_Lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove_

Lucas was frozen, and Eliott was walking away, he was _walking away_ , head hung low, shoulders slumped, and _shit._

_Holy fucking shit._

Lucas needed to acquire some brain cells, and fast. 

_If we aren’t married when we’re 35, let’s marry each other._

_Alright, deal_. _Let’s shake on it._

“You have the most beautiful blue eyes.” It was a feeble attempt, grasping for a memory he wasn’t sure even still existed in Eliott’s mind, but Lucas could see him perk up at the sound, slowly turning back around.

“What did you just say?”

_You know, if we’re gonna get married, we need wedding vows._

_Is that so?_

“I said,” Lucas continued with a shaky exhale, standing and taking the tiniest step closer, “you have the most beautiful blue eyes.”

And Lucas watched the pieces click together in Eliott’s brain, could visibly see it all falling into place in his head. And there was a moment. A moment when they just stood there, staring at each other. And Eliott _knew._ He didn’t even have to say it, Eliott just _knew_. 

Lucas would never know who moved first, but suddenly, like a strike of lightning, Eliott was in his arms. Eliott was in his arms, and his palms were on either side of Lucas’ face, and they were kissing. They were kissing and Lucas felt a tidal wave of relief sweep him under its current. His mind was spinning and spinning and spinning, but this time he never wanted it to stop. Because he had his arms wound firmly around Eliott’s middle, hands gripping tightly to the fabric of his jacket, and he was home. 

They clutched onto each other for dear life, lips and arms and souls intertwined, eventually forced to pull back for air, lungs being the greedy things they are. And they rested their foreheads together, breaths intermingling in tiny puffs in the cool night air. 

“They’re grey, idiot.” Eliott laughed breathlessly. 

Lucas tilted his head back and stared, awestruck, at the boy he loved. The boy who–apparently–loved him back. 

“I love you, Eliott.” he breathed. 

“I love you too.” And Eliott was staring too, and the look of wonder in his eyes set Lucas’ heart aglow. “I love you.” 

They both let out swooshing, shaking breaths, utter relief evident in the small chuckles and the slight way they both shook their heads in amazement. They smiled dumbly before their lips found each other again, and Lucas was soaring, floating on a cloud of pure joy, mesmerized by the way the feeling of Eliott’s lips on his own was the most all consuming, magical thing he had ever experienced.

“You know” Lucas mused once they pulled apart a second time, just far enough to speak, “I brought you here so _I_ could confess that I was in love with you. Kinda stole my thunder there, Eli.” 

“Ah Monsieur Demaury, I’m so very sorry to have inconvenienced you.” 

“Still giving me new names, I see.” 

“Still deciding the color of my eyes, I see.”

And Lucas couldn’t stop smiling, but that wouldn’t stop him from connecting their lips again. Because he wanted to, because he could, because if he had the option this would be the only thing he ever did for the rest of his life.

And it’s funny, he thought, how things change but they don’t, how they were exactly the same, the two of them, yet if you told the Lucas Lallemant of seven years ago that they would end up here, he would have burst out laughing. And maybe he’d been in love all along, but really, did any of it matter when it got him here in the end?

Here, holding Eliott close, pressing kisses all over his face, laughing and grinning like a giddy, love drunk mess. And that’s what he was, he supposed. Maybe he was ok with that. Maybe, he thought, as the two of them stumbled through the streets to Lucas’ apartment, this is what life is all about. Maybe, he thought, as they spilled through the front door–the kitchen mercifully emptied of curious roommates and best friends–and flopped into Lucas’ bed, it’s not about the memories or the fragments of the past we keep hidden away in the darkest corners of our hearts. Maybe, he thought, as he began to drift off, face nuzzled securely into Eliott’s neck, life is now. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed the sappy lil reunion 🥺 next chap will be eliott pov! 👀
> 
> feel free to let me know what you think in the comments! 🥰
> 
> my tumblr: [ earthlingeliott ](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com), ficpost [here](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com/post/630362599554433024/chapter-one-chapter-two-he-missed-eliott-the)


	4. i remember you and me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last official chapter 🥺 I hope you enjoy. all the softness n love for these boys in this chap 🥺 it's what they deserve 😌
> 
> for the 295606th time, chapter title from little league by conan gray

Eliott woke up to a soft tuft of hair tickling his chin. As he came to his senses, he became aware of soft grey sheets, a ceiling painted a warm blue-green, and a familiar form sleeping soundly, curled into his side. This wasn’t his room. This was Lucas’ room. He was with Lucas. And the events of the night before washed over him as his brain rebooted, overwhelming him with a lightness and a profound sense of peace that had him pressing a giddy smile into Lucas’ hair. This was a dream. There was no way this was real.

But as Lucas let out a small grumbling noise in his sleep, shuffling a bit before settling back onto Eliott’s chest, he looked at him, face peaceful and hair falling messily over his eyes, and he knew he wasn’t dreaming. This was better than a dream. 

He could cry. He could cry because he had the most beautiful boy in every universe and more in his arms, and they were ok. They were more than ok, they were incredible. And he couldn’t hold himself back any longer, he had to reach out and brush his fingers through Lucas’ hair, so he did. And he kept doing it, absentmindedly pushing the soft strands off Lucas’ forehead over and over, a warm smile glued to his features. Eventually Lucas stirred, nose scrunching adorably as he cracked open one eye, and a bashful grin appeared on his face when he looked up to meet Eliott’s soft gaze.

“Hi.” Lucas mumbled.

“Hi.” Eliott chuckled softly in reply. 

The pair of them sat with syrupy, contented smiles on their faces, basking in the warm morning sun streaming in through the window. The early rays cast golden streaks through Lucas’ hair, and Eliott chased the light with his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the top of Lucas’ head. At the happy little huff of air Lucas let out, Eliott continued, pressing his lips to Lucas’ forehead, his ear, each cheek, before landing on his nose. Lucas giggled. He giggled, carefree and sleep worn like it wasn’t the most beautiful sound Eliott had ever heard, and Eliott couldn’t not do it again — a more firm kiss this time, right to the tip of his nose. 

As Eliott settled back against the pillow, Lucas looked sleepily up at him through thick lashes, grinning with a little shake of his head before reaching a gentle hand to Eliott’s jaw and bringing their lips together. Eliott smiled a bit too much into it, but it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter _at all_. This moment was still the best of his life so far.

Eventually Lucas tucked his head back into the crook of Eliott’s neck with a sigh, and Eliott used the opportunity to look around at Lucas’ room. Of course, it wasn’t the same room he remembered from their childhood, but there were little trinkets here and there that he recognized: a poster of the milky way taped up a bit lopsided, a set of Beatles figurines sitting happily on a shelf, a string of colorful beads pinned to a bulletin board on the opposite wall. 

“Oh my god,” Eliott sat up excitedly, the sleepy haze finally lifting in his excitement, “You still have it?”

“Heyyyyyy,” Lucas whined in protest when Eliott jumped out of bed and darted across the room, “You haven’t cuddled me nearly enough to just be getting out of bed like that!”

Eliott hardly acknowledged the complaints, reaching out to pull the friendship bracelet off the wall, holding the beads gingerly in his palm. 

“I can’t believe you still have it.” He mused, almost to himself, as he scanned over the photos of Lucas with his friends, concert ticket stubs, and other mementos pinned to the wall. 

After a moment, Lucas appeared at his back, wrapping his arms around Eliott’s waist. 

“Of course I still have it,” He mumbled into Eliott’s shoulder, pressing a kiss just inside the collar of his shirt before resting his chin there to peer at the bracelet in Eliott’s hand. “This one too.” He added, pointing out a small slip of paper pinned up under a photostrip of Yann and Lucas wearing crazy hats and feather boas. It was a little raccoon and hedgehog – one Eliott had drawn for Lucas’ ninth birthday – the hedgehog blowing out candles on a cake while the raccoon, wearing a tiny party hat, held a giant bundle of balloons. 

“I remember drawing you that,” Eliott grinned, _I remember everything,_ he thought but refrained from saying aloud. And there was something about being here, looking over the memories of Lucas’ life since he left, it brought him back to moving day. 

_“Bye Lu!” Eliott sang, using every shred of willpower he had to put on a cheerful front, “See you soon!” And before he could break, before his resolve crumbled and he broke down in front of his best friend, he rushed to hop in the moving van._

_He didn’t look back. He_ couldn’t _look back. If he did, the sight of the boy that held Eliott’s heart in his tiny hands, standing all alone on the sidewalk, would have been too much to bear. It was all Eliott could manage not to collapse into his mother’s arms with a pained sob._

_And the more he thought about Lucas the more he felt the ache in his chest grow and grow, until he was shaking with tears against his mother’s shoulder after all._

_“Hey there, Eli-bellie,” His dad questioned from the driver’s seat, “What’s wrong, my boy?”_

_“I– I can't leave Lucas,” Eliott choked out with a weak sniffle, “ I miss him already. I love him. I can’t leave him alone.”_

_“Oh, sweetheart,” His mother crooned, brushing her hand soothingly over his hair, “It’ll be alright. I know you’re dealing with a lot of big feelings right now, but it will get better, I promise.”_

_After a few more moments of silent comfort, his mom spoke again, “I know what will make you feel better! Why don’t you write a letter when we get to the new apartment, you can find a place to sit and get all of your feelings out on paper. You don’t have to send it, just write and see if it helps you sort your emotions out a little. Sound good?”_

_“Yeah…” Eliott agreed weakly, “Ok.”_

_So when they arrived, his mother dug a slip of paper and a pen from her purse, and Eliott trotted to his new — for the moment completely empty — bedroom. He sat in the middle of the floor and got to work._

_For what felt like hours, he wrote and wrote and wrote. It was, in actuality, about ten minutes, but the magnitude of his feelings, the overwhelming, all consuming love he felt for the boy who had been by his side through everything felt as though it could fill up novels._

_Eliott was eleven years old. He hadn’t even_ technically _entered his teen years, much less_ mentally _, and he already knew that he had found his other half, the person he was supposed to go through the rest of his life with._

_And as Eliott read over his letter, thought about how much he felt for Lucas, when they would probably never see each other again, it was too much. He didn’t know it was possible to feel such profound heartbreak at such a young age, but here Eliott was, a statistical anomaly of the heart, throwing a letter written to the love of his life in the trash bin, hoping that somewhere along the road of growing up, the pain would fade into a distant memory, one he could hold in his hands with the slightest twinge of sadness and manage to continue on with his day._

“You know, I missed you the second that moving truck drove off,” Eliott mused, still looking at the beads in his hands thoughtfully, “And every moment since.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Lucas sighed at that, wrapping his arms tighter around Eliott’s middle and mumbling into his shoulder, “Me too.”

They stayed like that for a moment, Eliott staring down at the bracelet, lost in his thoughts of the past seven years. 

“I have a confession,” He eventually muttered with a dopey grin as he wriggled out of Lucas’ hold a bit to turn and face him.

“Do you now?” 

“Yeah,” He took Lucas’ face in his hands as he continued, “I lied when I said we came back to the neighborhood because of the real estate agent.” Lucas hummed in acknowledgement, brow creased expectantly as he waited for Eliott to continue, “I begged my parents to come back. They didn’t want to, said it had gotten too expensive around here, but I needed to come back,” he pressed their foreheads together, “I needed to see you. I missed you so much.” 

They stood for a moment before Lucas managed to formulate words, “I– I… wow.” He breathed, gaping at Eliott. “Wow.” And he leaned forward for a firm kiss, pulling back after a beat to look at Eliott with a level of raw emotion that had him almost on the brink of tears. Happy or sad, he wasn’t sure. Maybe a little of both.

“And I’m sorry, Lu, I’m so sorry for how I dealt with everything recently. I shut you out and that wasn’t fair. I hate myself for it. But I knew, I just _knew_ I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from kissing you if I got too close. And.. and I was so scared of losing you. I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Lucas frowned, placing a hand under Eliott’s chin to make him meet his gaze, “It’s ok, I understand. Sure, it did hurt, but I understand. Hell, you don’t even want to know the crazy stunts I pulled to avoid you that first week you came back.” 

“You mean like hijacking the girls bathroom? I may have seen that one.” Eliott chuckled, to which Lucas responded with a playful shove and an indignant scowl. 

“I invite you into my home, I hang your artwork on my walls, and this is the thanks I get?” Lucas teased. And at the mention of his drawings, Eliott remembered the slips of paper sitting in the inside pocket of his jacket. He could show Lucas now. It wasn’t too weird anymore.

“I have something to show you,” Eliott smiled, scanning the room for his jacket. When he found it he walked over to pick it up, “Do you–” He patted the pockets, “Do you remember when you came over and I was cleaning everything?”

“Yeah,” Lucas chuckled, “Yeah I do.”

“Well – _Aha!–_ I was hiding something I was embarrassed for you to see.” Eliott said, pulling a small stack of drawings out of the jacket and tossing it back to the ground. He sat at the edge of the bed and patted the spot next to him. “Come here.” 

Lucas approached slowly, and as he sat, touching their knees gently, suddenly Eliott felt incredibly nervous to share his drawings. If Lucas saw, he would know just how long Eliott had loved him. Surely it would freak him out.

But as Lucas peered over Eliott’s shoulder, he let out a little gasp and reached to take the small pile of papers in careful hands. Lucas flipped through them, giggling at the raccoon with its little tongue sticking out, playing a small keyboard as a hedgehog looked on with crossed paws. 

There was a pair of the little creatures floating through a galaxy of stars, another lying in a field of dandelions, and one last one, the paper less yellowed and the corners more crisp than the rest. Present day Lucas and Eliott sat on a swing set, their tiny animal counterparts lying on the ground at their feet. Both the Eliotts looked at their Lucases with smitten grins, thought bubbles exploding with hearts above their heads. 

Lucas turned to look at Eliott, eyes welling up a bit. “Eli…” He looked back at the drawing, a tear just missing the edge of the paper as it fell. “They’re wonderful, really, I love them. And you! Did I mention that I love you?” 

“It might have come up.” Eliott teased, mouth turning up in a mischievous grin. Lucas shook his head at the smug look on Eliott’s face, and in a blur of limbs he was tackling Eliott onto the bed. 

“I love you,” Lucas whispered, looking down at Eliott with warm ocean eyes, the sincerity in his tone causing Eliott’s stomach to flip and his heart to expand in his chest.

“I love you too, so much.” Eliott smiled, wide and as full of adoration as a smile could possibly be, using the pad of his thumb to wipe a happy tear from Lucas’ cheek before pulling him down for a kiss by the scruff of hair at the back of his neck. 

After a moment, Lucas pulled back, pushing off his hands a bit to safely tuck the drawings away on his nightstand. 

“So they don’t get crumpled,” he mumbled as he returned to Eliott’s side, leaning in as close as he could and placing a hand over Eliott’s heart. He wondered if Lucas could feel it thrumming beneath his fingertips. He hoped he could.

And as Eliott tucked his face into Lucas’ hair, he caught a whiff of his mango and coconut shampoo. He giggled at the observation. Lucas had used this very same shampoo when they were kids. He remembered this smell — cherished it — because it had always meant he had Lucas close.

_Lucas was beautiful._

_At least in young Eliott’s expert opinion he was. Nestled together in their pile of blankets, as Lucas gestured wildly, his eyes sparkling with the excitement of explaining parallel universes, Eliott couldn’t help but think:_ he’s beautiful. 

_And maybe Eliott didn’t like the idea of that many versions of himself existing out of his control, but he would sit and let Lucas talk about it for hours if only to keep that amazing smile on his face. Because nothing made Eliott’s heart more full than seeing Lucas happy._

_At some point he was broken out of his daze by Lucas reaching out a hand to playfully ruffle his hair, and then continuing to tackle him, tickling him mercilessly. His breath was stuck in his throat behind short, sharp bursts of laughter, and he was developing a stitch in his side, but all he paid attention to was the familiar smell of Lucas’ shampoo, and the smug look on Lucas’ face as he made an especially silly remark. This boy was everything. He was ridiculous, incredible, stupid, amazing, the only person in the whole world that always knew how to make Eliott laugh, could always cheer him up. He was everything._

_So when his mom peered in to lecture them about getting their sleep, Eliott almost didn’t want to say ok. He wanted to stay up with Lucas forever, hear him talk about the things that made him happy, cuddle closer so that he fell asleep with the scent of mango and coconut filling his nostrils. But they had had enough rebelling for one night, he knew he would have to wait until tomorrow._

_They settled into the blankets and Eliott watched as Lucas’ eyelids drooped, as his face grew serene and his cheek smushed further into the pillow. And before Lucas drifted off completely, Eliott needed to see him smile just one more time._

_“I think Lucas number 415 and Eliott number 1012 get to stay up tonight. I like that.”_

_There was a moment where Eliott wasn’t sure Lucas had heard him, but then he saw a little smile break through Lucas’ sleepy face. He didn’t open his eyes, just shuffled his face a bit on the pillow before settling still again._

_“Yeah, I like that too.”_

“When did you know?” Lucas mused after a long bout of pleasant silence, glancing up to catch Eliott’s gaze.

“Hm?” 

“When did you know? That you loved me, I mean.” He clarified.

“The sleepover.”

“Well that’s awfully specific.” 

“Shut up. It was the sleepover. The one when you first told me about parallel universes.” 

“You really weren’t kidding when you said it’s been that long?” And Lucas seemed a bit overwhelmed. Eliott brushed a gentle hand through his hair.

“No, I really wasn’t.” He mumbled softly. 

The money he would give to capture the look on Lucas’ face. He would find his phone right now if he felt he could separate from him long enough, but he couldn’t possibly get up now, not with Lucas’ hand sliding from his heart up to his cheek as he connected their lips softly. Not with Lucas beaming up at him with that beautiful smile of his, huffing out a small laugh when Eliott reached out the hand that wasn’t tucked under his shoulder to draw a little heart over Lucas’ clothed chest with his index finger. 

“What about you?” 

“Well, um, there’s when I knew and there’s when it actually happened.”

“Okay…” Eliott chuckled, “Tell me both.” 

“Okay, but I feel stupid now.” Lucas mumbled, pressing his face into Eliott’s shirt with a little groan.

“Hey, it’s ok. I won’t judge, you know I won’t. It can’t be more embarrassing than mine, I mean I was walking around like a lovesick puppy at age ten.”

Lucas chuckled brightly at that, his grin turning bashful as he took a deep breath and focused his eyes to the center of Eliott’s chest. “Alright. As we’re well aware, I can be pretty stupid, just preparing you for that. So... um – I didn’t know I loved you until the mural.” he finally rushed out. He seemed a bit more calm as he continued, cautiously lifting his eyes to meet Eliott’s, “But – but I think I always have. It’s always been there, I just didn’t know it, or I guess I didn’t know what to call it.”

_I think I always have._

The way those five words endeared Eliott so completely, shot a warmth and a visceral contentment through to his core, it was almost terrifying. Almost, but also not even close, because how could this be terrifying? He had been dreaming of this for more than eight years and somehow it all still managed to exceed expectations. This wasn’t scary, this was life-affirming. This was earth-shattering. This was everything. 

–

Eventually they found themselves back under the covers at the head of the bed, huddled as close as physically possible, as the rest of the world woke up outside their door. Lucas hadn’t known he could be this happy. It had never occurred to him that spending time with Eliott could possibly be more wonderful, but the way he held Lucas close to his chest, the way he said _I love you_ like the words were meant to come from his mouth, the feel of his heartbeat steadily thrumming beneath Lucas’ ear, it was a revelation. This must have been the elusive _meaning of life_ that everyone always talked about. 

He thought back to the night before, how the worst night of his life had become the best just like that. And he realised for the first time since it had happened, he had come out to his friends. 

“Hey” Lucas nudged, “I have something to tell you. You’ll be proud of me.”

“Will I now?”

“Yeah, I think so. At least– I mean I hope you will, I don’t kn-”

“I will,” Eliott assured, cupping Lucas’ face in his hands, “Of course I will.” And he pressed a firm kiss to Lucas’ lips, pulling back to listen intently. 

“So, um, last night. Before I called you I was really upset. I missed you so much. It was all just weighing on me a lot and I was kind of panicking, so I called Yann to come over, and my roommates showed up and-”

“Lucas. You… you had a panic attack? Because of me?” Eliott’s expression looked utterly crushed.

“Not because of you – well yes that was technically the reason – but I swear, I don’t blame you or anything I…”

“Lucas,” Eliott began again, firm yet gentle as he looked into Lucas’ eyes, “That’s not what I care about. You were hurting, and it was my fault. I left you without an explanation, of course you were hurt. God, I’m such an idiot. I’m horrible.”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth, Eli, you’re the least horrible person I know. And I promise you, I’m fine. That wasn’t even the point of the story. The point was Yann and Manon and Mika and Lisa were there last night, before I called you. And I told them about, well, I sort of came out to them. Not like really, but, I mean I told them I’m in love with you so, yeah, um… that was the point.”

“Lu, that’s amazing!” Eliott squealed, sitting up with giddy excitement, “Wow, you’re right, I _am_ proud. I’m _so_ proud. C’mere.” And Eliott grabbed Lucas’ wrist to pull him to sit as well, crushing his ribs in a tight hug before peppering his face with kisses. “And I know you said you’re fine, but I’m still sorry. I need you to know that. I never want to hurt you again.” 

“Eli, please, of course I know that. And I’m sorry too. I could have reached out, and I didn’t. I was a mess and I only made everything more confusing. I’m sorry.”

“We’ll do better now, both of us. We’re ok, we’ll be ok,” Eliott assured, touching his forehead to Lucas’, “But we need to focus on you right now. Telling your friends is such a big deal! I’m so so happy for you!” and Eliott’s enthusiasm, the wide, genuine smile that accompanied his words, it helped to quell the instinct to duck his head and deflect.

“I think I want to tell the rest. Soon. I’m ready.” Lucas beamed, leaning back a bit to grin back at Eliott without getting cross eyed. 

“That’s wonderful Lu. That’s really wonderful.” Eliott brushed his thumb soothingly along Lucas’ cheek. He leaned into the touch, “You don’t have to tell them just because you feel like you owe it to them, though, you know that right? Whatever you need to do, I’ll be here with you the whole time.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s not that. I’m just – I’m proud of it, of us. I want my friends to know.” And Lucas surprised even himself with how easily he was growing into comfort around his sexuality. He really, really liked it. 

“I know I’ve said it like six times, but I’m so proud of you, really. I love you so much.” Eliott beamed.

Lucas would never be able to fathom how this boy was even real. He was built of pure love and light and joy, the most caring, thoughtful, supportive, beautiful person there was. As he shook his head in awe at the wonder that was Eliott Demaury, the wonder shook his head right back, equally as amazed. 

“What did I do to deserve you?” Lucas chuckled, almost breathless with the intensity of feeling swooping through his heart and soul.

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

–

Real life eventually came knocking in the form of Eliott’s phone beginning to buzz from the depths of God knows what random pile of clothes on the floor. They ignored it at first, sharing a glance that said _not now, not when it’s so cozy in your arms_ as they pulled the blanket higher and snuggled closer. When the phone began ringing a second time, Eliott got up to search for it with a groan.

“Shit,” He gaped when he finally found it, “it’s my parents! Should I tell them I’m with you?”

“Don’t lie about where you are Eli,” Lucas grumbled, begrudgingly getting up to join him in staring down at his screen, “They know me pretty well, I think it will be okay.”

“Okay, but I won’t tell them why. I want to tell them in person. Make a day out of it.” Eliott decided.

“Alright,” Lucas chuckled. _Hopeless romantic from birth_ he added in his head.

Eliott answered the phone, then, greeting his mother before laughing brightly with a _Don’t worry, I’m with Lucas_ and putting the phone on speaker for a moment so the two of them could exchange a quick greeting _._

Once Eliott put the phone back to his ear, Lucas could just barely make out Mrs. Demaury excitedly asking about how he was, Eliott replying that he was really good, lifting the phone off his ear and covering the receiver with his hand to give Lucas a smiley kiss. 

Lucas saw his face fall, assumed she was asking him to come home, and his assumptions were proven correct when Eliott grumbled a _Can’t I just stay the day? You didn't tell me we were doing anything!_ And from what Lucas gathered, without being able to explain how or why he had ended up at Lucas’ place, Eliott was having a hard time negotiating in his favor. 

Eventually he acquiesced with a sigh, huffing an _Okay, I’ll come home. Give me an hour. See you then, love you._ before hanging up and throwing the phone on the bed. He groaned and pulled Lucas into a tight hug.

“Don’t wanna go.” He mumbled into Lucas’ collar. 

“Don’t want you to go either,” Lucas replied, breathing in the distinctly _Eliott_ scent that he hadn’t realized he had catalogued away in his brain until now. “But you can’t ruin your grand reveal, remember! Gotta keep the parents guessing!”

“ _Our_ grand reveal,” Elliot corrected with a weak laugh, pulling back from the hug to look at Lucas with a dopey little smile, “But you’re right, I need to go.” 

“C’mon, let’s get you dressed," Lucas said, looking around the room and grabbing the one of Eliott's socks he managed to spot, "I’ll go see if I can find some of Manon’s baked goods so you can have something to eat on the bus.” And Lucas left him to find where in the world he had left his t-shirt, emerging from his room for the first time since he had brought Eliott home. He found Manon standing in the kitchen, Mika sitting at the table, absorbed in his phone.

“Morning,” She grinned, “how did you sleep?” 

Lucas chuckled at her goofy tone, “Slept well, thanks, you?” 

“Yeah, me too.” She turned back to rummage through the fridge as she continued, “You’re looking rather cheerful. Things went well?” 

“Yeah,” he mused, a lovesick grin spreading across his face without his say so, “Really well.”

“I’m glad. You deserve to be happy.” 

“I am. I’m really happy.” And at that Eliott peeked his head out of Lucas’ door and Lucas’ smile only grew brighter. “Hey you.”

“Ugh, love has made you disgusting, chatouna.” Mika teased, finally looking up from his screen. 

“Leave them alone!” Manon chided, “It’s sweet.”

Lucas' cheeks were burning bright red at their teasing. He turned to quietly direct Eliott, “Hey, why don’t you wait outside? I’ll grab something to eat and throw on some clothes and be out in like two minutes?” 

“Alright _chatouna._ ” Eliott giggled, glancing over Lucas’ shoulder at Mika. “See you in two minutes, I already miss you.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Lucas groaned, albeit fondly, planting a kiss on Eliott’s cheek before ushering him to the door. when it closed behind him, Lucas turned back to the kitchen. “Thanks for that, Mika, really, that was great.”

“Of course, Lucas, I’m always here to embarrass you, it’s part of my job description, you know, as your gay guru.” Mika joked with a wry grin. 

“You are _not_ my guru.” Lucas replied, turning to share an exasperated look with Manon, “Baked anything delicious I could take for the road?”

“As a matter of fact, I have!” She sang, walking over to give him a little plastic container with two slices of pound cake, “Here you go!”

“Thanks Manon. I just have to walk Eliott to the bus stop, I'll be back in like 20 minutes!” 

“See you in 20 minutes, lover boy.” Mika teased. Lucas rolled his eyes one more time for good measure, but he saw the fond smile on Mika’s face. He had his own ridiculous way of showing it, but Lucas knew Mika was happy for him. 

He ducked back into his room to throw on a t-shirt and jeans, moving back to the door to shove his feet into his shoes as he slid his arms into his jacket. When he peered out the front door, Eliott was leaning against the opposite wall. He looked straight out of a movie, and when he looked up from his phone and saw Lucas, the smile that spread on his face made Lucas’ heart soar.

“Ready?” Eliott asked, extending a hand for Lucas to take.

“Yeah,” Lucas grinned, switching the tupperware to his other hand so he could put his hand in Eliott’s. 

They walked cheerfully to the bus stop, their intertwined hands swinging between them. When Eliott asked for some cake, Lucas held it out for him to take the lid off the container. Eliott tore off a bite, popping it in Lucas’ mouth, all the while never letting go of his other hand. Lucas chuckled as he chewed, watching Eliott take another bite for himself. 

“You’re an idiot.” Lucas laughed. 

“Yeah, well you chose me so what does that make you?”

“Hm, I guess we’re both idiots.”

“Guess so.” 

“But you’re my idiot,” Lucas grinned, “And I’m yours.” 

“Such a sap, Lallemant.”

“You love it, Demaury.”

“Yeah, yeah I do.” And they had reached the bus stop by then. When they slowed to a stop, Eliott rounded to stand in front of him, finally releasing their hands to bring both of his to cup Lucas’ face.

“Hi,” Lucas breathed a bit dumbly as he looked up at Eliott.

“Hi,” Eliott giggled, pressing a long kiss to Lucas’ lips, “love you.”

“Love you too.” 

They stood wrapped up in each other for who knows how long. Maybe it was two minutes, maybe two years, Lucas had no concept of time when he had his arms wrapped around Eliott’s waist. However long it was, the bus eventually arrived. Lucas reluctantly loosened his grip, allowing Eliott to shuffle a step or two before pulling him back in for a firm hug, pressing his face into Eliott’s jacket.

“I don’t want you to go.” He mumbled, feeling the whisper of a tear building.

“Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. It’ll be ok.” 

Lucas huffed a tiny laugh, finally letting go so Eliott could climb onto the bus. Eliott was right, they had all the time in the world. They were ok. 

As Eliott boarded the bus, turning in the doorway to say one final _I love you,_ which Lucas returned with a watery smile, he was struck with a sense of déjà vu. The door closed and the bus pulled out into the street, and this was moving day. This was Eliott leaving him on the sidewalk, driving around the corner and out of sight.

Except this wasn’t moving day. Eliott would come back. He would come back again and again and again. And as Lucas stood alone on the pavement, he couldn’t have felt less like that 9 year old boy on the curb below his childhood home. This wasn’t an ending, this was a beginning. 

The best beginning there had ever been.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if I triggered missing elu hours for you I sincerely apologize. If it makes you feel any better, I triggered them for myself for a week straight writing this 😌
> 
> if you'd like to sue for emotional damages please come yell at me on tumblr 😌: [ earthlingeliott ](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com)
> 
> ficpost is [here](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com/post/631071462266224641/chapter-one-chapter-two-chapter-three-you-know) if you want to give it some love 🥰


	5. epilogue (two weeks later)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost two months later I finally had the motivation to push through writing this 🥺
> 
> I've had this epilogue more than half written for a very long time, but it got away from me and I really lost my writing flow for a while, but I hope you enjoy 🥺

It was a good thing Eliott’s apartment was only on the second floor. Lucas hadn’t had the practice throwing pebbles that Eliott had throughout their childhood, and his aim was far from accurate to say the least. It didn’t help that his hands were practically shaking with gleeful nervous energy.

He managed to hit the window after about ten tries, and then after a few more successful throws, he grinned and hopped a bit from foot to foot as he saw the window swinging open. 

Eliott rubbed his eyes sleepily as he peeked his head out, looking around with a confused frown for the source of the disruption. Lucas giggled at the picture his boyfriend made. 

“Wake up sleepyhead!” Lucas called up to him. Eliott spotted him then, chuckling and shaking his head as he put his elbows on the windowsill and rested his chin in his hands to look down at Lucas, who continued with a sweet smile, “Come down here, I have something to tell youuuuu!”

“What the hell time is it?” Eliott grumbled. It was a fond grumble, but a grumble nonetheless.

“It is _not_ that early. Pleeeeeease come down. I’ll give you kisses!” 

“Alright, Romeo,” Eliott giggled with a sleepy eye roll. Lucas stuck his tongue out at that and Eliott scrunched his face up in return, “I’ll be right down.”

Lucas leaned against a tree as Eliott turned back inside. The Saturday morning sun seemed to be smiling down at him and late spring was settling warmly in the air. Lucas looked overhead and pink flowers were blooming on the branches of the tree, their petals casting patches of shade that blanketed the sidewalk below his feet. 

He felt the minutes stretching into days as he waited for Eliott. he started drumming his fingertips on the side of his leg, humming whatever song came to mind, letting his brain manifest his jittery energy in whatever way it deemed appropriate.

When Eliott finally appeared at the door to his apartment building, waiting to hold it open for an older woman carrying a bouquet of sunflowers with that beautiful, bright smile of his, Lucas ran to him, jumping into his arms before he had even finished ruffling a hand through his hair.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Eliott chuckled, his hands finding Lucas’ waist to make sure he settled safely on the ground, “what’s gotten into you?” 

“Oh nothing,” Lucas grinned, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially, “Just some super amazing, fantastic, incredible news.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep!”

“Are you gonna tell me then?” Eliott giggled as Lucas busied himself peppering little kisses all over his face rather than divulging his amazing, fantastic, incredible news.

“Oh, yeah, guess I should. Drum roll please!”

Eliott drummed lightly on Lucas’ chest with the palms of his hands, and Lucas just _knew_ the overwhelming endearment he felt was clear as day on his face as he looked up at Eliott.

“I came out to my friends!”

“Oh my god, really?” Eliott exclaimed, and at the wide grin and giddy nod Lucas gave him, Eliott lifted him off the ground, spinning him a few times before setting him back down on the pavement to plant an enthusiastic kiss to Lucas’ lips with two strong hands on either side of his face. 

“Wait, wait, wait, you have to see how I told them!” Lucas squealed, reaching a shaking hand into his pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper that he flattened to his chest as he explained, “So. I was at the table for breakfast with Manon. and I thought, _you know what? I want to do it today._ Just felt like the right time, you know? So I recruited her for help because it felt like individually in person was a _lot,_ and I don’t know, that’s also, like, awkward, so she said I could make a group chat to tell everyone. So I sent them all a message and then I threw my phone at her and hid in my room, you know, because I’m so mature. Anyways, she came in a few minutes later and read all the super nice messages they all sent back, so I stopped her in the middle of one and grabbed the phone out of her hands and came straight here. But you have to guess what I sent them, Eli, guess.” 

The bright, attentive smile Eliott had worn the entire time he listened morphed into an adorable little scowl as he raised an eyebrow to ponder, or at least pretend to ponder, “Hmmm, ok let me think. Oh, I know! You showed them your grindr profile!” He smirked.

Lucas rolled his eyes fondly, “No, my love, you’re confusing me with Mika, I’m afraid. Nice try.”

“You’re no fun! That would have been so good, I’m disappointed.”

“Oh my god, shut up. Take another guess.”

“Come on, Lu, don’t make me guess for real, I’m so bad at guessing.”

“Ugh, fine,” Lucas grumbled, “Now look who’s no fun,” he added with a teasing eye roll, peeling the paper off his chest to hand it to Eliott. As Eliott stared down at the drawing – a crude sketch of a hedgehog holding a raccoon’s hand, a speech bubble reading, _hey friends! i have something important to tell you: i’m gay!_ – tears started to form in Eliott’s eyes.

“Hey, are you crying? Do you hate it? I’m sorry Eli, I thought it was cute I didn’t mean—”

Eliott cut him off with a firm kiss, chuckling as he pulled back to look at the drawing again. 

“Lucas. It’s truly awful. The most horrendous drawing I’ve ever seen. I love it so much. I love you so much.”

Lucas breathed out a half giggle, half sigh of relief at that, falling into Eliott when he opened his arms for a hug. Lucas tucked his face into Eliott’s chest and Eliott tucked his into Lucas’ hair, and they were silent for the most part, except for Eliott murmuring a string of sweet things into his hair, reminding Lucas how much he loved him, how proud he was, how happy Lucas made him.

Lucas’ heart was brimming with a joy so pure he was almost afraid it would spill out onto the sidewalk and blind passers by with its light. He’d grown so comfortable in the bitter taste the move had left in his mouth over time, stuck in replaying memories of seven, eight, nine years ago just to try to join the bitter with some sweetness in his head, and it had been ruining his life. He had been in a fog, never really living in his own body, trying to stay tethered to another version of himself that simply didn’t exist anymore. When Eliott came back, it was less that he got back the piece of himself that Eliott had driven off with – he was still a whole person without Eliott by his side – but that he was suddenly confronted with the reality of how much of a life raft their memories had become. He had helped Lucas let it all go and put his brain back in his body, live today, right now. Not that he wouldn’t still look back fondly on all of their memories, but he didn’t _need_ them anymore. It felt incredible.

“We need to celebrate,” Eliott announced, pulling back from their hug and breaking Lucas out of his thoughts in the process. Not that he was complaining, Eliott looked beautiful in the morning sun.

“Celebrate?”

“Yep!” Eliott exclaimed, turning to head down the street. He turned back after a few paces, “You coming?”

And Lucas would never be tired of Eliott deciding they were going off on an adventure, walking off unannounced, extending a hand for Lucas to take. There was something so viscerally _Eliott_ about it, the playful mystery, the romanticism, the thought that he put into taking Lucas somewhere special. Lucas grinned brightly as he took Eliott’s outstretched hand, “Let’s go.”

They spent the whole walk trying to trip each other, giggling when Lucas succeeded, sending Eliott careening to the ground. He landed in a patch of grass on the edge of the sidewalk, and after an exaggerated huff and smiley eye roll, he pushed himself to stand, plucking a dandelion on the way.

“You’re so pretty,” He mused as he tucked it behind Lucas’ ear. Lucas shook his head at the adorable grin on Eliott’s face. 

“Love you,” Lucas mumbled as he wound an arm around Eliott’s waist, and they set off down the pavement again. 

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Eliott teased, wrapping his arm around Lucas’ shoulder. Lucas scoffed playfully, nudging Eliott’s shoulder with the top of his head – which only earned him a teasing remark about his height – before they settled back into a comfortable silence. “Love you too,” Eliott eventually added, softly, quietly, but undoubtedly there.

Eliott was leading them home. Well not _home_ home, but it was home. Lucas knew this neighborhood like the back of his hand. He hadn’t been back in a long time, but there was something about these streets, the soles of his feet would always remember the path home. 

When they rounded the corner to their block, Lucas felt the giddy rush of adrenaline thrumming through him again. The street rarely had car traffic, so they walked right down the center of the road until they were stood with their old windows directly overhead.

“We’re going inside.” Eliott grinned.

“We’re _what?”_

“We’re going inside, come on Lu, trust me,” 

“Eli, I don’t know if you’re aware, but we don’t live here anymore. We can’t just barge into other people's apartments, my love,” Lucas teased.

“Such a downer, where’s your sense of adventure?” Eliott giggled. And if Lucas weren’t so hopped up on post coming out adrenaline, he absolutely would have protested more, but if he was honest, seeing his old room did sound really fun. 

“Alright, but if we get arrested I’m throwing you under the bus, no hesitation.” 

“I don’t doubt it,” And at that, they shared a quick kiss and turned to enter their respective buildings. Someone somewhere must have been rooting for them, because they both found themselves being let in the front doors without having to awkwardly buzz up to explain why they were here over the intercom. As Lucas began to climb the stairs, he started to feel the nerves bounce around, somersaulting in his stomach and pulling a goofy giggle out of him. He was _really_ about to do this, huh? 

When he reached his floor, he took a deep breath, shaking out his arms before knocking on the door. A younger couple, probably in their mid — maybe late — twenties, answered. A tall brunette had her arm around a smaller blonde’s shoulder. The blonde held a glass of lemonade in her free hand, which she sipped with a little bit of confusion on her face. That was fair, he thought, they had opened their door to a random teenager on a Saturday morning. He probably interrupted their breakfast. Regardless, they looked like friendly people, they reminded him a little of him and Eliott. Lucas sighed in relief.

“Hi, um, oh my god this is so weird,” Lucas began with a jittery quiver in his voice, “Ok, I’m really sorry to bother you, just this was the apartment I grew up in and, uh, my boyfriend and I, he lived in the place across the street and — can I just — can I come in for a minute if you don’t mind? Sorry, god this sounds so creepy.” 

“Oh, you’re the boy who used to live here?” The taller woman asked, “I bet those drawings we can’t seem to scrub off the walls were you, right?”

“Yeah, sorry about that, I was just obsessed with the universe so I guess four year old me thought it wise to draw all the planets on the walls. Sorry.”

“No worries,” The blonde reassured him with a warm smile, “It’s really sweet. Adds character, you know?” she took another sip of her lemonade, this time without the curious scowl, “Come on in.”

“Oh my god, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Lucas rambled at the invitation, rushing forward to crush them in a hug. He heard a startled little chuckle from the blonde, and pulled back, more than a little embarrassed with himself, “Sorry,” He mumbled sheepishly. 

“You’re fine…” the brunette began, pausing expectantly.

“Lucas! My name is Lucas!” He offered.

“Lucas,” she repeated with a welcoming smile, “I’m Andrea, this is Estelle. We were just having breakfast, you’re welcome to some waffles if you like.”

Oh god, he _had_ interrupted their breakfast, “No, no, that’s alright. Thank you so much, but I don’t want to intrude any more than I already have.” 

“Suit yourself,” Estelle mumbled, “you’re missing out, though, I make a mean Belgian waffle.” Lucas chuckled at that, they _definitely_ reminded him of him and Eliott. 

They stepped out of the doorway to allow him inside, and he smiled gratefully at them both, crossing the threshold to take in the sight of familiar walls covered in new artwork, and familiar floors covered in new furniture. 

When he came to his bedroom door, he discovered that it had been converted into a little office space. There was a white slab desk in the corner where his bookshelf used to be, a filing cabinet in the spot he used to keep his little plastic keyboard, and a printer set up where his table used to be, the one he would sit at to write all of his notes to Eliott. 

He slowly approached the window, the only thing about the room that remained completely unchanged, and he could feel the memories in the floorboards with every step. He chuckled at the creak he felt under his foot a few paces from the window. That floorboard had _always_ gotten him caught for racing back and forth to the window to talk with Eliott while he was grounded. He reached the window, putting a shaky hand to the pane of glass with a wistful smile, before peering across the way to find Eliott stood with a note pressed to his own window. 

_I love you, I’m so proud of you._

Lucas looked at the familiar handwriting, still messy as ever, and he felt his eyes welling. He met Eliott’s gaze and leveled him with the widest smile he possibly could before turning to rush to the printer, staring for a moment before he found where the hell it stored the paper, eventually pulling out a sheet and darting to the desk to scribble a reply. He returned to the window, holding his note up to the glass with a watery grin.

_Best window buddy a boy could ask for. I love you too._

They beamed at each other for a beat before Eliott opened his window, Lucas following suit. 

“We should probably get going, huh,” Eliott giggled from across the way, glancing behind him into the apartment, “We are trespassing after all.”

“We probably should,” Lucas laughed, “I might kind of sort of need to kiss the living daylights out of you, anyway.” Eliott smiled lovingly in lieu of responding, chuckling to himself as he shut the window and turned to head back out to the street. When Lucas turned to head out as well, he found Andrea and Estelle leaning against the door frame, smiling on with their plates of waffles held close to their chins. Estelle was right, they _did_ look delicious. 

Lucas couldn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed that they had just witnessed all of that, he was far too overwhelmed with happiness to care. 

“Thank you again, really, this meant so much to me,” He gushed. 

They looked at each other, smiled, and then turned back to him. “Of course, Lucas, any time,” Andrea beamed, “You two are really sweet, you know.”

“Thanks,” Lucas mumbled, smiling shyly at his feet, “I’d better get going, Eliott will be waiting.”

“Go get your boy!” Estelle cheered, waving one of her waffles in the air and stepping out of the doorway so he could pass by her. As he crossed through, they both gave him an encouraging pat on the back, and he turned to thank them for the thousandth time. He made his way to the door with plenty more thank you’s, Estelle eventually managing to convince Lucas to take a waffle for the road. 

He ate it quickly as he raced down the stairs, popping the last bite into his mouth as he reached the last step. He burst through the front doors, scanning the street for Eliott, running to him when he saw him across the way, facing the other direction. 

Eliott let out a startled _oof_ when Lucas jumped on his back, but swiftly adjusted, hoisting him to more comfortably meld to his back like a koala. He pressed a dramatic kiss to Eliott’s cheek before jumping down to give him a proper kiss on the lips. 

“Is that syrup?” Eliott giggled when they pulled apart.

“Maybe I had a waffle or something,” Lucas smiled, “You should have met this couple, Eli, they were so nice, they reminded me of us.”

“Really?” Eliott smiled warmly before seeming to remember he was trying to poke fun, “I can’t believe you didn’t get me a waffle!” he huffed, the goofy look on his face reducing Lucas to a puddle of fondness. 

“You make me so so happy,” Lucas rushed between more kisses, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“You make me happier,” Eliott beamed, “I love you more.”

“You don’t want to compete with me on this one, Demaury, you know I don’t lose.” 

“I don’t know, I think I might have you beat on this one. Might I remind you I have over eight years of loving you under my belt.”

 _God_ Lucas loved this idiot so much. “Let’s tell our parents about us,” he grinned.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I want us to. Let’s plan dinner.”

“I’d love that. What about next Friday?” Eliott offered, pulling Lucas closer and smiling like a dummy. 

“Yes!” Lucas exclaimed, “Perfect, Friday is perfect. Oh my god I forgot to tell you, but I heard from my mom yesterday, she gets to spend the whole weekend with me, I’m so excited.”

“That’s amazing!” Eliott grinned, “But, um, if you want to do another day, I don’t want to take away from your weekend with her.” 

“She’ll be so happy to see you, Eli, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend our time than with you.” 

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. I love you,” Lucas beamed. 

“I love you too. Ok, it’s settled then! I’ll ask my mom to make her world famous risotto, you just bring my favorite Lallemant and you’ll be golden,” Eliott said, slipping his hand into Lucas’ and pulling lightly so they started walking back the way they had come. 

“You’re sweet,” Lucas grinned. 

“I was talking about your mom, but I’ll take the compliment,” Eliott quipped, giggling into a kiss and squeezing Lucas’ hand. 

And looking down at their linked hands as he returned the squeeze, then up at the adorable grin Eliott was wearing, Lucas felt excited for a family dinner for the first time in a long time, maybe ever. 

He couldn’t wait until Friday.

–

Eliott had never been so nervous in his life. He sat next to Lucas at the dinner table, his mom and dad across from them, Lucas’ mom at the head of the table. The risotto was amazing, as expected. Lucas looked beautiful, also as expected. 

They had spent the better part of an hour catching up, reminiscing, lamenting all the years they had gone without doing this. Eliott had forgotten how much he loved Lucas’ mom. The two of them used to revel in any opportunity to tease him. He had missed his co-conspirator.

When there was finally a lull in the conversation, Eliott reached for Lucas’ hand under the table, meeting his eyes and giving him a small nod. They turned to their parents. 

“So…” They both began in unison, earning chuckles from the whole table as they fumbled to decide who would speak. They should have spent longer rehearsing.

They eventually landed on Eliott delivering the news, turning back to meet their parents’ expectant gaze. “So…. Mom, Dad, Mrs. Lallemant. We have something to tell you.” Lucas squeezed his hand and Eliott gave him a quick smile, returning the squeeze, “Lucas and I… Lucas and I are dating.” 

“How long has it been?” Eliott’s mom inquired. _What?_ Why did she care about how long it’s been? Eliott glanced a bit warily at Lucas.

“Um… about two weeks? Why?”

His mom burst into laughter, his dad huffed and crossed his arms, Mrs. Lallemant looked on with a soft chuckle. Eliott’s blood boiled, he gripped Lucas’ hand protectively. _What kind of a reaction was this? Did they think their love was funny?_

Eliott’s parents met eyes, “You owe me money, good sir!” she managed through her laughing fit. 

“What?” Eliott yelped, “What in the world is going on?”

His mom took a deep breath, “Sorry boys, whew, ok. It’s just that your father bet that you’d tell us by June, but I knew you wouldn’t last more than a month tops.”

Eliott glanced over to where Lucas’ cheeks were burning bright red in embarrassment. God, this wasn’t supposed to be making Lucas uncomfortable. While his parents squabbled over the money owed, he leaned close, whispering in Lucas’ ear, “You’re not the one who should be embarrassed, I’m the one who’s been crying to them about how in love I am with you since I was ten.” That seemed to do the trick, making Lucas giggle and easing the discomfort on his face. 

“Maybe it’s not so bad,” Lucas whispered back, “I kind of like that it’s so obvious. I could have done without the hysterical laughing, but I don’t think I mind that they knew. I don’t want to hide anymore. Not myself, not you.”

“Boys?” Eliott’s mom drew their attention back to the group, “I’m sorry, I kind of ruined that didn’t I?”

“A little,” Eliott chuckled.

“Bets aside, I’m really happy for you boys, we all are. We’re glad you’re happy. That’s all we want.” His dad nodded enthusiastically in agreement, Mrs. Lallemant smiled proudly at her son. The start had been a bit rocky, but it looked like their announcement had been a success after all, “And I promise, we won’t be making any more bets.”

Lucas raised a suspicious eyebrow, calling her bluff, “You three have already placed bets on when the wedding will be, don’t lie.”

Their parents glanced around the table, and then the whole lot of them burst into laughter again. 

Eliott looked around the table, at his four favorite people in the universe, his family. He saw graduations, a new apartment, silver wedding bands, the biggest party of his life. Maybe a kid. Maybe that kid would befriend the kid across the street. Maybe they’d fall in love. Maybe one day he and Lucas would sit at the other side of a table a lot like this one, in tears with laughter when the kids finally admit what the two of them knew all along. Maybe they would place bets on a wedding day and the cycle would start anew. 

Eliott glanced at Lucas, at that amazing smile and that beautiful laugh. Who cared how their story would go. They had their whole lives to figure it out.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so so so much to anyone who read this story, who left a comment or kudos or sent me an ask 🥺 this was my first baby and I've definitely been tempted to delete it a few times, I won't lie, but I'm so so grateful for the support I got through this process 🥺
> 
> as always, come say hey [on tumblr](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com) if you like, ficpost is [here](https://earthlingeliott.tumblr.com/post/636136547068116992/chapter-one-chapter-two-chapter-three-chapter)


End file.
